Taiwan Lengthens Mandatory Military Service to One Year: ‘Peace Does Not Fall from the Sky’

Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen announced that her country’s mandatory military service requirement would be extended from the current length of four months, now to one year.

She revealed the policy change during a press conference at the presidential office in Taipei today, warning that Taiwan needs to boost its defense preparations.

“Nobody wants war,” Tsai said. “The Taiwanese government and its people do not want it, nor does the international community want it. But peace does not fall from the sky.”

Taiwanese men have been required to spend at least four months in the military, an obligation drastically shortened from the two-year commitment that had once existed. Tsai said that the new conscription requirement of one year will take effect in 2024.

That change comes with a massive boost in the monthly salary for conscripts from a bit over $200 to over $600, per Taiwan’s official CNA news agency.

Crucially, conscripts will receive a more rigorous training regime focused on marksmanship, and it will also include practice with anti-armor, anti-drone, and Stinger missiles, Tsai said.

However, some experts, such as the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation’s Paul Huang, criticized the promise that training will include practice with Stingers, pointing out that Taiwan has very few of the surface-to-air missiles.

There’s currently a years-long backlog for the delivery of 215 Stinger missiles to Taiwan that had been purchased several years ago, the Wall Street Journal reported.

U.S. officials, meanwhile, have encouraged their Taiwanese counterparts to boost civilian defense trainings, especially involving training with firearms.

Nevertheless, the training overhaul comes amid sharpening Chinese aggression — and intensifying Taiwanese preparations to repeal an attack. Earlier this year, Taiwan’s government advanced a 14 percent defense-spending boost for 2023.

Earlier this week, China’s People’s Liberation Army sent 71 aircraft and seven naval vessels toward areas near Taiwan, with 47 of the planes crossing the Taiwan Strait median and entering the country’s air defense identification zone.

That saber rattling on Christmas Day put a fine point on a year in which Beijing’s intent to one day seize Taiwan appears to have accelerated, a trend described by U.S. and Taiwanese officials. Those warnings followed Chinese missile tests in the waters surrounding Taiwan, an act in retaliation for Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August.

“Instead of sticking with the status quo that was established in a positive way, a fundamental decision that the status quo was no longer acceptable and that Beijing was determined to pursue reunification on a much faster timeline,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in October.

Blinken’s comment, which was atypical in its blunt nature, is consistent with what his Taiwanese counterpart, Joseph Wu, has said. “The government here in Taiwan does not have that kind of luxury to guess [when] it will attack Taiwan,” he told reporters in September. “What we need to do is to make ourselves fully prepared.”