President reiterates Taiwan's goal to build small but strong force
ROC Central News Agency
2014/02/16 19:53:09
Taipei, Feb. 16 (CNA) Speaking to retired military officers and supporters of unification, President Ma Ying-jeou Sunday outlined Taiwan's efforts to streamline the military and maintain effective deterrence through strength instead of size.
'It's impossible for us to compete with potential enemies in terms of the size of our military manpower,' Ma said when attending a Lunar New Year celebration organized by the pro-unification New Alliance Association in Taipei.
Ma reiterated Taiwan's goal of building a military force that is 'small but elite, small but skillful, and small but strong' in an effort to adapt to the needs of modern warfare.
The military is planning to cut its military personnel down to 0.8 percent of the country's total population, Ma said.
That would mean about 186,900 military personnel, though Ma indicated this past Thursday that a ratio of 0.6-0.7 percent of the population would be enough to ensure defensive capabilities while meeting with Robert Willard, former commander of the U.S. Pacific Command from 2009 to 2012.
The Republic of China had a force of 600,000 when the government was moved from mainland China to Taiwan in 1949, Ma said, adding that recent streamlining efforts reduced armed forces personnel to 450,000 in 1998.
The current number of military personnel is nearly 220,000, according to the Ministry of National Defense.
The continued downsizing comes as Taiwan plans its shift to an all-volunteer force by 2017.
Plans originally called for the transition to be completed by 2015, but the date was pushed back due to lower-than-expected recruitment numbers.
To meet its new goal, the military will need to recruit more than 10,000 servicemen annually in 2015 and 2016, but that number will fall to around 7,000 beginning in 2017.
(By Claudia Liu, Tseng Ying-yu and Elaine Hou)
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