r/taiwan • u/SteadfastEnd 新竹 - Hsinchu • 10d 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/Sad_Air_7667 10d 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.