TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — AFinancial Times report on Thursday (May 2) highlighted the increasing Chinese threat towards Taiwan through the military experience of an Indigenous soldier.
At 19, Pa Wen-shan enlisted in the army in 2012 and was deployed in the Aviation and Special Forces Command in Taiwan’s southwest. Pa, a member of the Kaaluwan tribe, hailed from Jialan village in Taitung. “I was young. I had joined the special forces because I liked challenges,” he said.
He was later transferred to an army garrison closer to home after his father’s death. More than 900 of the 1,800 soldiers who serve at Taiping are Indigenous, FT reported. “I encouraged the youngsters from my tribe to join the army and brought many of them in here,” Pa said.
In 2014, the army had Pa enrolled in a one-year business administration program through which he received a university degree. This allowed him to take a qualifying exam that put him on track to become an officer.
It was not until March 30, 2015, that a Chinese H-6 bomber flew through the Bashi Channel, and turned northward into the Pacific flying near Taiwan’s east coast for the first time. “Previously, I didn’t think they could attack at all, and anyway we felt safer here. But I began to understand that the PLA is getting stronger and stronger,” Pa said.
From then on, cross-strait tensions only increased. In November 2016, several Chinese aircraft circumnavigated Taiwan for the first time. By 2018, China’s first aircraft carrier, Liaoning, conducted a drill east of Taiwan.
It was not until the war in Ukraine in 2022 that Taiwan began rolling out military reforms to bolster its reserve force and improve training. Target practice and exercises were ordered to be more realistic.
“We now go on combat readiness patrols off base four days a week,” Pa said.
Now, he leads his unit to patrol the entire perimeter of the air base and civilian airport they are assigned to defend. They also test which roads are big enough for their armored vehicles and plan emergency escape routes.
Troops have a detailed mental map of the surrounding landscape and can navigate the terrain with maps and a compass. The garrison now supplies 826 rounds per soldier, annually, and mandates varied target practice that includes different firing positions.
Instilling a will to fight is the primary challenge Pa will face when he becomes an officer, FT said. He explains to his friends and family how China uses psychological warfare to spread a defeatist attitude among the enemy.
Tags: Soldiers experience underscores rising Chinese threat Taiwan Taiwan News
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