A plan to extend compulsory military service in Taiwan to one year from the current four months will be announced on Tuesday, a senior government official said, as the island faces growing Chinese military pressure. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s office said she would hold a national security meeting on Tuesday morning to discuss strengthening the island’s civil defense, followed by a press conference on unspecified new civil defense measures.
Tsai’s security team, including senior officials from the Ministry of Defense and the National Security Council, has been reviewing Taiwan’s military system since 2020, according to the official, amid growing threats from China. Taipei, which rejects Beijing’s claim to sovereignty, on Monday announced the largest-ever Chinese air force incursion into the island’s air defense identification zone, with 43 Chinese planes crossing the unofficial buffer between the two sides.
China also held war games near Taiwan in August following a visit to Taipei by then-U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. “China’s various unilateral behaviors have become a major concern for regional security,” said an official who attended the high-level security discussion and declined to be named. Under the plans, due to take effect in 2024, conscripts would undergo more intensive training, including marksmanship exercises and combat instructions used by US forces, the official said.
The conscripts would be tasked with guarding key infrastructure, allowing regular troops to respond more quickly in the event of any Chinese invasion attempt, they added. Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense declined to comment. Tsai is overseeing a broad modernization program and pushing the idea of ​​”asymmetric warfare” to make the island’s forces more mobile, agile and harder to attack.
The official Central News Agency, citing government and ruling sources familiar with the matter, first reported late Monday that the Taiwanese government would announce its plan to extend mandatory military service. Taiwan is gradually moving from a conscript army to a professional force controlled by volunteers, but China’s growing assertiveness over the island it claims as its own, as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have fueled debate about how to bolster defenses. Russia calls the war a “special operation”.
Previous governments of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the main opposition Kuomintang party cut compulsory service for men from more than two years to four months to please younger voters as tensions between Taipei and Beijing eased. Military training in Taiwan, especially for conscripts and reservists, had deteriorated. In recent years, China has stepped up diplomatic, military and economic pressure on the self-governing island to accept Beijing’s rule. The Taiwanese government says that only the Taiwanese people can decide their future and vows to defend itself if attacked.
