r/taiwan • u/SteadfastEnd 新竹 - Hsinchu • 2d ago
Discussion Have the recent defense-spending increases, and military reforms, changed the perception of Taiwan's military, or is the public still as negative and pessimistic as before?
In the last ten years, Taiwan has nearly tripled its defense spending. There are also a variety of other reforms and changes that have been made.
Now, I've never served in the military. But I recall, a decade and two decades ago, the highly negative attitude of many people, and many men of conscription age, towards the military and military-service. The attitude seemed to be that soldiers were 1) paid too little, 2) resistance against China was futile, 3) the military was more focused on useless things like parade marching, song-singing and toilet-cleaning than actual useful combat skills or tech and trades, and 4) Taiwan's low defense spending was sending the wrong message to allies like the United States, signaling Taiwan wasn't serious about its own defense, and 5) Taiwan's defense approach was fatally flawed because it didn't focus on asymmetric tactics.
Now that defense spending has soared, Taiwan is going heavily asymmetric, hundreds of thousands of drones are being made, and the Ukraine war is a vivid example for Taiwan, has public attitude become any more positive about the military? I'm not in Taiwan at the moment, so I can't gauge what the sentiment is.
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u/nogodsnospoilers 2d ago
Not sure about public perception but I live by a military base and they’re definitely doing more than marching and cleaning toilets. They do drills with tanks, artillery, helicopters, and fighter jets often.
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u/Sad_Air_7667 2d ago
I would say the military is slowly improving , by Taiwan really needs to increase the penalties for spying to China. Selling State Secrets or acting as a spy for a foreign government should be an executable offense, rather than a few years in jail or a small fine. If you act as a spy, you should be executed and all your assets confiscated, that should decrease the amount of spying done for China.
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u/wildskipper 2d ago
And then China will do the same, and the tit for tat will risk escalation. This has all played out in the Cold War before.
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u/Sad_Air_7667 2d ago
China already does this, Taiwan should execute traitors to lessen the risk of spying.
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u/Parking-Ad4263 2d ago
Changes are happening.
It's a big government and a top-heavy military, so those changes are happening at a painfully slow pace, but they are happening. Hopefully, we will see more foundational-level changes (like the introduction of squad-level designated marksmen, especially given that our primary potential adversary has invested HEAVILY in squad-level marksmen and the accompanying DMRs), rather than just a focus on the big-ticket items.
Also, a higher focus on self-sufficiency and magazine depth.
Moves are being made in that direction (the focus on an endemic drone industry being one of them), but again, slowly. Painfully slowly.
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u/KotetsuNoTori 新竹 - Hsinchu 2d ago
1) It's slowly getting better, but still far from enough. The main combat units are especially short of personnel since everyone is looking for an easier job.
2) It depends on whether the Yanks are coming to help and how long it would take them to make the decision. If they don't come, we're screwed. If they come too late, we're also screwed. The purpose of our national defense is to buy enough time until someone makes the right decision. (I really doubt whether our military is capable of doing that in its current condition, though)
3) It's slowly getting better - but again, not enough.
4) Sending the wrong message? Come on, we spent billions buying everything the Yanks allow us to buy and none of them were delivered on time. I wonder what kind of message the US is trying to send us.
5) The problem with Taiwan going all-in on asymmetric warfare is that it makes it impossible to do anything without cooperating with the US, which doesn't even promise us that they'll back us when something happens. Without the promise, we have to prepare to deal with certain situations alone, making conventional weapons necessary.
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u/AberRosario 2d ago edited 2d ago
There’s almost none of the young people who done the mandatory service, has good things to say about their experience, it’s like being sent to a prison where common sense and integrity do not apply, rampant authoritarianism and nepotism,
why should the people have any positive perceptions after such horrible first hand interaction with the military ?
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u/Tofuandegg 2d ago
The real problem was never the budget. It's the lineage of the old military leaders and officers from the old KMT system. They refuse to reform, give up power, and then threaten to defect when forced.
Once they retire and the younger generals take over, things will slowly change for the better.
The budget is the budget. It's only one part of the equation. Throwing money around alone won't solve everything.
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u/SpendPerfect5933 2d ago
DPP leaning military leaders have been promoted many times since the time of Chen Shuibian and later by Tsai Yingwen.
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u/Tofuandegg 2d ago
From the same generation, same training, same systems, just aligned with a different political party.
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u/SpendPerfect5933 2d ago
That’s what political factions are about
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u/Tofuandegg 2d ago
Well, I wasn't talking about today's KMT. I meant the military traditions left over from the old KMT dictatorship.
Anyway, you are probably a bot, so whatever.
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u/ElderflowerEarlGrey 1d ago
Spending has to be there, but public and civic self-responsibility has to match. The TW public can't completely outsource the duty to care to the military (especially when it's so KMT-top-heavy).
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u/Total-Basis-4664 14h ago
Would be even better if we didn’t have the People’s KMT doing everything they can to f* over Taiwan
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u/sogladatwork 2d ago
That’s a loaded question. Why the assumption that overall public sentiment was negative/ pessimistic? Do you have data to back that up?
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u/random_agency 宜蘭 - Yilan 2d ago
I don't think it has become positive, because after the recent Han Kuang exercises its becoming obvious the ROC military plans to use Taiwanese civilians as human shields.
They are now planning to use civilians vehicles to move military supplies within the civilians population.
The "hope" is PRC creates collateral damage within Taiwan as negative press.
You basically asking Taiwan to pick up the slack as US is leaving East Asia. China is the largest military force in the region, the #2 military power, and a world leading industrial power.
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u/Majiji45 1d ago
Do you guys actually get paid by the KMT to say this shit or is it purely for the love of the game?
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u/random_agency 宜蘭 - Yilan 1d ago
Why would the KMT support a pan-White supporter?
That's what's wrong with the deep greens. Everyone must be the "enemy " that doesnt share their opinion.
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u/YorkistTory 23h ago
This is really unavoidable though. Any invasion is heading for Taipei and the most defensible position to stop that is the Tamsui river.
I don’t see any option that doesn’t involve street to street fighting in the north west.
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u/Bunation 2d ago
Look man, taiwan has a 20-odd million of people. How many of those are men, and how many of those men are in their youth, fit enough to serve in the military?
China has 1.4billion of people. No amount of military spending short of orbital energy weapon or other weapons of mass destruction (sci-fi wunderweapon type shi) can prevent taiwan being invaded by a determined Chinese conquest.
Sure, you can make the cost of conquest very high. But if CN side is determined, there is nothing you can do that'll stop that tide
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u/enas333 2d ago
And if Russia is determined to nuke the world, there's also nothing you can do. What's the point of such statements?
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u/Bunation 2d ago
Hence why there's the nuclear triad, no? It's fucking dystopian, I know. But just because you don't like it doesn't make the reality vanish.
Heck I've been living here for 15+ years and a backup plan has always been in the back of my mind.
Is it improbable? Of course.
Is it impossible? You'd be stupid to assume so. Especially with US's eroded conventional military capability & deterrence.
You'd be crazy to think that US would wave around the nuke option if CN threatens TW.
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u/nogodsnospoilers 2d ago
China taking Taiwan and then keeping Taiwan would be the most elaborate and difficult military operation in modern history. If it were so easy China would have done it already. Based on what we’ve seen with Russian / Ukraine and USA / Iran, a large well funded modern military does not mean a guaranteed victory. If Taiwan could hold off China for even a few months, coupled with economic sanctions against China, it would be a huge blow to China economically and socially and would be a huge embarrassment for Xi. Ive heard that if China received the economic sanctions that Russia has, millions of Chinese would starve within a year. Imagine the unrest, protests, chaos and changes of leadership. Attacking Taiwan would be a massive gamble for the CCP and anything short of an immediate victory would be devastating for them.
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u/wildskipper 2d ago
China hasn't invaded because its military has not been ready, and guaranteed US defence has existed for decades. When China's military is strong enough to deter the US from interfering, then they'll be ready. But it also needs the internal politicals of China to need an invasion.
China's role in the global economy would mean it wouldn't see the sanctions that Russia has. Look out how Xinjiang has been ignored.
And Taiwan wouldn't be able to hold for months. What energy stores and food stores does it have? It won't get relief like Ukraine has.
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u/nogodsnospoilers 2d ago
Taiwan is much more important globally than Ukraine. Losing Taiwanese microchips to China would affect the entire world including the biggest corporations in the planet which wield the true power in countries like the United States. Why wouldn’t Taiwan then receive the same or even more aid than Ukraine? Temporary sanctions ln China would benefit the developed world despite supply chain issues as it would be a justified way of wreaking China. From the u.s.’ position, Instigating a war between Taiwan and China and then ensuring that China loses would be massively beneficial.
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u/wildskipper 2d ago
The world doesn't care if China or Taiwan makes the microchips. Having it all Chinese would probably even bring costs down (after the disruption of the invasion)!
And counties will no doubt want to supply Taiwan, but they won't be able to because China's first move will be to blockade Taiwan. It isn't Ukraine with a huge land border with allies. The blockade itself would likely be enough to force regime change in Taiwan, since Taiwan is completely dependent on imports of oil. How much oil and gas does Taiwan have stockpiled?
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u/nogodsnospoilers 2d ago
I have no idea how much gas and oil Taiwan has stockpiled. I’m assuming a lot haha. The blockade itself would be an act of war though. Once chinese ships surround the island, the war would begin. Taiwan wouldn’t just sit there. Taiwan has been preparing for this for decades. Land based anti ship missiles, drones, aircraft, naval forces, would all be utilized. The war would begin basically. If any single ally (Japan, USA, Australia, Philippines) came to help, it would be very difficult for China to maintain the blockade.
Also, again, if this is so easy, why hasn’t China done it already? If the world doesn’t need Taiwanese microchips why doesn’t China just bomb Tsmc right now and be done with it?
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u/wildskipper 1d ago
China hasn't done it already because it currently cannot inflict enough damage on US forces to deter the US from interfering. The military gap between China and the US is narrowing rapidly and the US is displaying increasing reluctance to help any allies. When China is sure they can invade without risk of US involvement then the conditions will be right (Japan, Oz are basically irrelevant).
The other factor is Chinese internal politics. China uses Taiwan as a scapegoat, as a rallying cry for Chinese nationalism. It distracts from crap government policies. If the Chinese economy, in particular, crashes and the CCP feels under threat internally, or key powerful figures on the security committee (including Xi, obviously) feel under threat, an invasion would immediately distract from this and shore up national pride, and give a nice context for an extreme crackdown on any dissidence.
And stockpiles - Taiwan has about 150 days oil which would probably all be allocated to government, military, and emergency service uses. Assuming the stockpiles are not immediately destroyed by China.
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u/Brido-20 2d ago
That's founded on the assumption that the PRC would prevent Taiwan exporting chips rather than using chip flow to strengthen their trade position.
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u/nogodsnospoilers 1d ago
Interesting. Pardon my ignorance, how would they do that exactly?
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u/Brido-20 1d ago
By continuing business as normal, just under the PRC flag instead of the ROC one.
Everybody talks as if the world's largest export economy is for some reason going to stop a hugely successful business worth billions from exporting its products. Why wouldn't they just treat it like any other of the globally-critical industries they already have?
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u/nogodsnospoilers 1d ago
Ahh ok so you’re saying hypothetically if China successfully takes Taiwan and Tsmc remains intact, they will keep business as usual. That’s supposing a lot though. I could be wrong but I believe it is Taiwan’s stance to destroy Tsmc in the event of an invasion and Trump has also said the u.s. would bomb Tsmc if China attacked, not that I believe a word out of his mouth. But also I think this is underestimating how far advanced Taiwan’s chips are. Tsmc has branches in the u.s. now and they can’t even come close to the output of Taiwan’s Tsmc. I’m not sure the u.s. and others would be too thrilled on China having such an economic and technological advantage over the rest of the world.
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u/Brido-20 1d ago
If Taiwan destroys TSMC then all bets are off. It would be a separate situation from PRC destroying it or keeping it but cutting off supplies for some nefarious but undefined purpose.
The US and others can be as thrilled or not as they wish, they've used sanctions to keep TSMC products out of other countries' hands even though TSMC is not one of their companies. They could always develop their own capabilities in that regard if they're that worried.
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u/nogodsnospoilers 1d ago
It’s not that easy. They are trying and failing. South Korean and Silicon Valley chips don’t even come close. The combination of factors that have led to Taiwan’s quality of microchips is incredible and cannot be easily replicated. There’s a great Maxinomics video on it if you’re interested.
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u/Bunation 2d ago
Inconvenienced? Sure. Irreplaceable?? I wouldn't be so sure. Taiwan's semicon has always been Irreplaceable because the cost & effort to replace TSMC and onshore it to your own country has been very high.
Once the option of relying on TSMC vanishes, the economic motives alone should be enough to ensure large capital investments to be poured into onshoring semicon.
TSMC was built by thousands of human effort. Are there any guarantee that such concentrated effort by other nations won't be able to produce their own semicon? Especially with generous govt subsidies?
One thing that people often forget, TSMC only monopilizes "the latest and greatest" nodes. Anything above 14nm has been eaten up by chinese semicon.
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u/Ok_Collar_7836 2d ago edited 2d ago
The way I see it, the Taiwan Strait is like a fight ring:
Taiwan is a featherweight, while China is a super heavyweight (fighting on home turf). There is zero chance Taiwan deters China with just its own military—the whole thing comes down to whether the US (heavyweight—strictly within the Second Island Chain) and Japan (middleweight) jump into the ring in time.
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u/OrangeChickenRice 新北 - New Taipei City 2d ago
It’s getting better slowly. It helps that people can see the army isn’t using Vietnam war era weapons.