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Longer compulsory military service 'necessary': DPP legislator

ROC Central News Agency

03/21/2022 08:30 PM

Taipei, March 21 (CNA) A senior lawmaker from Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said Monday that the country needed to extend its mandatory military service period, while raising the possibility that conscription could eventually be expanded to include women.

Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), who heads the DPP's International Affairs Department, made the comments during a public discussion with his counterpart from the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), Alexander Huang (黃介正), on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and its lessons for Taiwan.

When asked about Taiwan's military service system, Lo said he believed a mainly volunteer force, with conscripts serving in a supporting role, remained the most suitable model for the country.

"Still, moderately extending the mandatory service period is necessary," he said, adding that one year of mandatory service, rather than the current four months, would be "easier to arrange" in terms of young people's education and professional plans.

Lo also raised the possibility of expanding the current male-only conscription to include women, which he noted would only require a legal amendment, rather than constitutional reform.

While women already make up a significant portion of Taiwan's voluntary armed forces, making females undergo mandatory conscription is something that would require more discussion and consensus, he said.

Huang, meanwhile, expressed openness to the idea of a longer conscription period, but said the government needed to communicate with the public, and especially young people, before making a decision.

The public discussion, which was hosted by the Institute for National Policy Research, a Taipei-based think tank, was held amid growing calls for Taiwan to increase its defense capability, particularly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February.

While Lo and Huang both expressed sympathy for Ukraine, they appeared to draw different conclusions about what Taiwan should learn from the ongoing conflict.

"As the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues, China will understand that a war with Taiwan would be riskier than it expected," Lo said. "But Taiwan also has to show that it has the will to defend itself, as Ukraine has, for the international community to be able to help," he added.

In contrast, Huang said that while the KMT and DPP often agree on national security issues, his party advocated a different approach to how Taiwan should position itself between the United States and China.

"In analyzing foreign policy issues, we have to make sure that our starting point is always the national interests of Taiwan, rather than the interests of Washington or Beijing," he explained.

On the issue of the war itself, Huang said he worried that Ukraine, after suffering so many deaths, would ultimately have to sign a ceasefire agreement that would leave it worse off than before the war in terms of its sovereignty and independence.

"That would be a big blow for many Taiwanese" as well, he said.

Lo, however, said it would be improper to compare Ukraine's situation before and after the war, or to suggest that it would come to "regret" the conflict, because it was attacked and had no choice in the matter.

(By Huang Ya-shih and Matthew Mazzetta)

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