As New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, now has former KMT secretary-general King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) on his campaign team, Hou seems to have had a change of tactic. Currently ranking at the bottom of the polls, he appears intent on turning the tide with his policy rollout.
For one, when Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate, proposed retaining the shuttered reactors of the nation’s third nuclear power plant in Ma-anshan (馬鞍山), Pingtung County, in case of an emergency, Hou promptly and, without thinking of its feasibility, promised to keep all four nuclear power plants. He said he would reactivate the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant, the nation’s first plant in New Taipei City’s Shihmen District (石門), restart construction of the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in the city’s Gongliao District(貢寮), and keep the second plant in the city’s Wanli District (萬里) and the third one in operation.
However, state-run utility Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) questioned Hou’s policy on nuclear power. It said the first plant was forced to shut down before its 40-year license expired, because it did not have room to store new spent fuel. Hou also conveniently forgot that it was the New Taipei City Government that had refused to issue a license for a dry-cask storage facility that would have served as an interim solution for storing spent fuel.
Furthermore, Hou has shifted from prevarication to full endorsement of the so-called “1992 consensus.” He said that, if elected president, he would reinstate a shorter four-month compulsory military service. Hou’s series of policy U-turns have only made him look like he is grasping at straws.
The four-month compulsory military service was a blatant attempt by former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to court supporters. During these four months, draftees spend most of the time training and yet do not possess any combat readiness or the competency to carry out missions in the event of warfare. They are then discharged just as they are getting into stride. The military has become a camp that is always training newcomers, which could undermine the combat power of professional armed forces.
About 30 years ago, I trained to be a reserve officer during my compulsory military service. Setting aside the time of training at Taichung’s Chenggong Ling (成功嶺) military training camp and Fuxinggang (復興崗) military academy, as well as some in practice training with the troops, I actually did less than one-and-a-half years for my military service. From learning the ropes to settling in, by the time I found my bearings, conscription was almost over. I remember my supervisors lamenting about how things were just getting on track and it was time to say goodbye. If two years of conscription was not enough, what can four months of military conscription achieve?
As the sub-replacement fertility rate worsens and cross-strait tensions escalate, the government’s reinstatement of compulsory military service to one year has not been an easy choice, but a measure of necessity.
If Hou wishes to appeal to young people by changing military service back to four months, perhaps he can also throw in other self-defeating measures such as abolishing the conscription system and giving up on arms purchases. In other words, would it not be easier to just raise the white flag to the Chinese Communist Party?
Chung Pang-yu is an adjunct assistant professor at National Kaohsiung Normal University’s department of education.
Translated by Rita Wang
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