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Reference News reported on August 12 Taiwan’s United Daily News published an editorial on August 10 saying that the island’s defense budget has reached a new high, but it cannot conceal the crisis of “hollowing out” of the Taiwan military.

The editorial said that the island's total defense expenditure next year will reach NT$647 billion (NT$1 is about RMB 0.22 - this website note), an increase of NT$40 billion from this year, setting a new record again. The current situation of the Taiwan military is comparable to that of Taipower, which is forced to whitewash the situation under the non-nuclear policy. The grassroots personnel have worked hard, and their organization and morale have been hollowed out under long-term pressure, and they cannot make up for the harm caused by the paranoia of the top leaders.

Let's first look at some recent news about the Taiwan military. First, the maintenance of the main warships of the Taiwan Navy was seriously delayed, and as many as half of them were not implemented as planned; second, the "military police" in the office of the leader of the Taiwan authorities shot himself, and representatives of the people found that the "staff-to-current ratio" of the unit was only more than 60%, resulting in the frequency of sentries far exceeding the standard; third, according to an investigation, the total number of Taiwan military officers and soldiers in July last year was 155,218, a decrease of more than 9,600 people compared with 18 months ago, a decrease of 6%. Among them, the number of people lost in the last 6 months was almost the same as in the first 12 months, indicating that the lack of manpower is the biggest concern of the Taiwan military.

The total number of Taiwan's military personnel is 215,000. Excluding civilians, students, trainees, and those on long vacation, the "established personnel" is 188,000. The Taiwan authorities claim that a 90% current ratio can maintain combat effectiveness and reduce the manpower demand to nearly 170,000; but since the Taiwan military transformed into "recruiting soldiers", this number has never been reached. Tsai Ing-wen's administration has resumed the conscription of one-year compulsory military service, but compared with the shortage of manpower, the situation is just the opposite. The restoration of compulsory military service and the purchase of new weapons require the establishment of new units, which require more professional soldiers to serve as cadres; but in reality, a large number of volunteers have applied for retirement in the past two years, which shows that the manpower and morale problems are serious.

The collapse of any system in history begins with a sporadic collapse and then falls like a snowball. This applies to the current Taiwan military and the direction of the Lai administration.