Military Personnel
Taiwan ended compulsory military service on 26 December 2018, when the final group of 412 conscripts was discharged. By 2018, Taiwan had approximately 215,000 personnel in the armed forces (approximately 70 percent of whom were volunteers), supported by approximately 1.7 million reservists and nearly 1 million civil defense volunteers. Taiwan’s military modernization program envisions a continued decrease in Taiwan’s active duty force to approximately 175,000 personnel as part of the transition to an all-volunteer force by 2019. This transition has slowed due to severe difficulties recruiting enough volunteers.
On the surface, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has 215,000 budget positions in all branches, of which 188,000 are soldiers and the rest are civilian employees. As of 2018, only 153,000 of these positions have been filled, accounting for only 81% of the military's expected personnel. However, even this number cannot tell the whole story. All the army's front-line combat units he knows of—including armour, mechanized infantry, and artillery troops—currently have effective manpower levels of between 60 and 80 percent. This figure is consistent with Taiwanese media reports, which cite MND figures provided to Taiwan's parliament, the Legislative Yuan, acknowledging that few front-line units have more than 80 percent of their positions filled.
The personnel shortfalls are a consequence of the ill-executed transition from conscription to an all-volunteer military over the past few years. It was a political decision made during Ma Ying-jeou's administration and continued by current President Tsai Ing-wen, despite their coming from different parties. and despite Tsai's tough rhetoric about defending Taiwan during her successful recent reelection bid, and her vow to thwart Chinese aggression, she has shown no sign of stepping in to fix the problems.
The reason for the hollowing out of front-line troops is simple. Unlike conscripts, who could be assigned entirely based on to the needs of the military, volunteer soldiers among the lower enlisted ranks can and usually do seek transfers to units considered desirable—rear -echelon troops such as training schools, garrison units, signal corps, and so forth. Although transfer opportunities are limited, soldiers almost always find a way. This means that armour, mechanized infantry, and artillery units are always in desperate shortage of enlisted soldiers --Even though they are expected to be the ones bearing the brunt of ground fighting against the formidable People's Liberation Army (PLA) ground force if it comes ashore.
A popular yet cynical explanation as to why these Taiwanese soldiers dislike front-line units simply postulates a common aversion to tougher training and combat duty. But interviews with several enlisted ranks painted a more complex picture. Most complained that the food and living conditions left much to be desired—front-line soldiers must split their time between bases and on field exercises. That, on top of the fact they have far more weapons, vehicles, and equipment to clean and maintain, means these posts are perceived as more work for little reward. The existing shortages also cause an even heavier burden of work on the soldiers left—prompting more of them to put in for transfers.
The cost savings from manpower reductions provides some margin to improve individual pay and benefits, housing, and incentive pay; however, these savings have been insufficient to cover the full increase in manpower-related costs needed to attract and retain personnel under the new system. The unanticipated magnitude of transition costs has led Taiwan to divert funds from foreign and indigenous defense acquisition programs, as well as near-term training and readiness.
In the past, because the military’s capacity to train new recruits was insufficient, most new college graduates had to wait up to six months to start performing their military service, with only a small fraction of them being able to do so within one or two months of graduation. This delay translated into wasted time for the young men, who could not enter the workforce in the interim period due to the uncertainty of the waiting time. The situation also indirectly contributes to an increase in the nation’s unemployment rate.
The military planned to streamline total military personnel from its 2004 force level of 300,000 servicemen to 265,000 men by 2009, three years earlier than was projected by former Defense Minister Tang Yiau-ming. According to the 2008 defense budget plan, as of the end of 2009, the number of military personnel was to be reduced to a total of 275,000, including 250,000 on the regular MND payroll. On 05 December 2008 Vice Defense Minister Chang Liang-jen said that the Ministry of National Defense (MND) had started planning to push a fully professional voluntary military service system in a bid to build the country's military into "lean and mean" fighting force.
The fully volunteer military program would be promoted in a gradual manner, with the number of uniformed men and women recruited through a voluntary enlistment system increasing 10 percent year-on-year from 2010 and eventually reaching a fully volunteer force by 2014, Chang said during a forum held in Taipei. According to an MND budget plan, the number of military personnel will have been reduced to a total of 275,000 by the end of 2008, including 250,000 on the regular MND payroll.
On 19 January 2009 the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said in a statement that the military was still working on a troop restructuring plan that will be drawn up based on the principles of integrating its service branches for combat missions and maintaining its overall combat capabilities. The ministry issued the statement after the China Times, a Taipei-based Chinese-language newspaper, reported that day that the military will proceed with a plan to slash the number of troops to facilitate its all-volunteer service program. According to the report, the military will cut the country's current 275,000 troops over the next four years, but had yet to decide on the level of cuts. The paper speculated that the final target would be 180,000 troops.
According to statistics released 01 September 2014 by the Ministry of National Defense (MND), a total of 21,294 men and women had applied to join the Taiwan military since January. The number is almost double that of the MND's original annual target of 10,557. President Ma Ying-jeou attributed the recruitment success to a salary raise for volunteer soldiers that was approved by the government earlier in the year as well as a series of reforms within the military to offer a better environment for military personnel.
As of 2014 Taiwan aimed to trim its armed forces to 215,000 by the end of the year. Defense Minister Yen Ming said that a planned program to further trim the country's military personnel to below 200,000 by the end of 2019 will be formally implemented in 2015. The goal will be to cut the number of troops to between 170,000 and 190,000, according to Yen.
In order to establish the military officers’ and soldiers’ correct cognition toward “the nationalized military”, the MND actively carried out various propaganda and education in 2012. The proportion of the military education in various troops, organizations, and schools was increased to mold the loyal and brave integrity of “not being greedy, not being afraid of death, loving country, and loving civilians,” and to shape the military officers and soldiers to have moral integrity and be promising by imperceptible influence.
Following the governmental guidance, the MND was diligently promoting gender equality. By hosing “Gender Equality Promotion Taskforce” meeting periodically, the MND has been inserting views of gender quality into policy discussions. The number of female members has grown to over 23,000 in 2019 from a little more than 15,000 in 2012, amount to 12.4% of the total force. With the climbing trend of female participation, the MND continues improving their living quarters, providing nursery rooms, and offering childcare assistance and information, in order to create a gender friendly environment.
Taiwan's military announced in January 2025 new recruitment and retention measures to help sustain troop levels, as the island faces continued threats from China amid a shrinking number of volunteer soldiers. According to Taiwan’s Central News Agency, the Ministry of National Defense unveiled measures 15 January 2025 that call for pay raises for volunteer enlistees among other incentives. According to data from the Budget Center of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, the number of volunteer troops has dropped by 12,000 over the past three years. The military currently haf 152,885 soldiers, compared with 164,884 soldiers in 2021.
Additionally, more Taiwanese soldiers were choosing to discharge from their service commitments early, according to the data. Some 1,565 troops took early leave in 2024, a sharp increase from the nearly 400 personnel who did so in 2020. The decline prompted Taiwanese authorities to reinstate a one-year conscripted service requirement for Taiwanese males and make efforts to improve the military’s defense training infrastructure and provide higher salaries to its troops.
Still, some analysts are worried that these reforms might not be enough to ensure Taiwan’s combat-readiness. Yu-Ping Chou is a former director of the planning division at the Air Defense Missile Command under the General Staff Headquarters of Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense. He told VOA’s Mandarin Service that so far reforms have not been enough to ease the challenges of troop recruitment and retention.
Current active-duty personnel find themselves taking on extended hours of training and service work to offset the impact of depleted troop enrollment, which drives more troops to seek discharge, Chou said. More frequent aggressive maneuvers from China have also required Taiwan’s military to increase surveillance and patrol missions, adding to the burden put on already overworked soldiers, he said. Chou said the military is also facing a type of “brain-drain.” This problem is particularly prominent within the air force, with many skilled pilots deciding to leave and seek higher salaries in the commercial airline industry.
Experienced soldiers are essential to operate advanced weapons systems, which makes the heightened discharge numbers especially challenging for the island’s efforts to modernize its defense force. “The defense force is currently in the process of upgrading its equipment and weapons systems, and needs quality manpower to operate these new, advanced weapons,” Chou said. “If there’s no one to operate the best equipment, can it perform at its full potential?” A final reason for the fall in enrollment, Chou said, stems from the perceived heightened danger of serving as a soldier at this time. He said the current “danger of war” made some families reluctant to send their children into service.
Su Tzu-yun, director of the division of defense strategy and resource under the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei, blamed demographic factors for the fall in recruitment, and pointed out that many advanced democracies are also facing challenges in military recruitment. The number of men eligible for military recruitment is falling, dropping below 100,000 in 2024 for the first time in Taiwan’s history, according to the Ministry of the Interior. By 2031, it is predicted that there will be fewer than 75,000 recruitable men on the island.
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