TAIPEI-Taiwan will extend the period of mandatory military service for all eligible men from four months to a year amid rising threats from China, President Tsai Ing-wen said at a news conference in Taipei on Tuesday. Four months of mandatory military training can “no longer suit the needs” of Taiwan’s defense, she said, adding that while extending the service period was a “difficult decision,” it was necessary for safeguarding the island’s democratic way of life. “Nobody wants war. 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,” she said.
“We need to actively prepare for war to prevent war, and we need to be able to fight a war to stop a war.” The new conscription period, which be implemented at the start of 2024, will apply to men born after 2005, she said.
The move marks a U-turn for Taiwan, a self-governing democracy of 23.5 million people, which had shortened mandatory conscription from one year to four months as recently as 2018. It comes as China increasingly asserts its territorial claims over Taiwan, which the ruling Chinese Communist Party in Beijing has never controlled, including sending 47 aircraft across the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Sunday – its largest incursion into the island’s air defense zone in recent months. According to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, all conscripts under the new system will be required to undergo.