Taiwan set to recruit 5,000 more military police: Source
ROC Central News Agency
04/13/2023 04:33 PM
Taipei, April 13 (CNA) Taiwan is expected to double the number of its military police in the coming years in a bid to beef up protection for the president and other top government leaders, a military source told CNA Thursday.
Currently, around 5,000 of the 210,000 troops in Taiwan's armed forces are military police, a number which the source said is set to double to 10,000 pending central government approval.
Unlike many other countries, Taiwan's military police are a separate branch of the armed forces tasked with protecting government leaders from assassination or capture, guarding strategic facilities, and conducting counterintelligence against enemy infiltrators, spies, and saboteurs.
The proposal to increase the size of Taiwan's military police force comes ahead of an extension to compulsory military service from four months to a year starting in 2024.
According to Chieh Chung (揭仲), an associate research fellow with the National Policy Foundation in Taipei, the extension of the compulsory military service period should give Taiwan's armed forces an extra 60,000 to 70,000 servicemen starting in 2027.
(By Matt Yu and Joseph Yeh)
Enditem/ASG
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