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Military personnel recruitment policy laid down

ROC Central News Agency

2009/06/03 20:09:47

By Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, June 3 (CNA) The Ministry of National Defense (MND) has devised a new military recruitment policy under which Taiwan will adopt an all-volunteer military service system during peace time but will maintain areservist system to be used in time of war, a senior MND official said Wednesday.

Lt. Gen. Wang Chun-chiang, director of the MND Department of Manpower, made the announcement at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan's Foreign and National Defense Committee.

Wang said the MND will reach its goal of having an all-volunteer military force by the end of 2014. Wang and Vice Defense Minister Chang Liang-jen were invited to attend the committee meeting to give briefings how the ministry will implement the new system.

Faced with a variety of legislators' opinions about the system, Chang said the ministry "will go all-out to reach the goal of building an all-volunteer military service system." Asked how the ministry plans to cover the added expense of an all-volunteer military, Chang said the annual budget for personnel spending will be raised from 39 percent of the total national defense budget in 2009 to 45 percent once the system is fully implemented.

At the same time, the budget for arms procurement will be cut, he said.

Legislator Lin Yu-fang of the ruling Kuomintang reminded the ministry that as it continues to reduce its intake of conscripts year by year, it will be faced with the problem that the number of people awaiting deferred conscription will have reached 92,000 by the end of 2013. According to the existing laws, these people must perform their national service.

Asked how the MND will handle the problem, Wang said it is planning to put such conscripts to work as alternative service draftees and will move to amend the relevant regulations to allow more people to serve in this capacity.

According to the MND report, under the all-volunteer system, conscripts after 2014 will still need to undergo military training for four months before being registered as military reserves, to be called up in the event of war.