If Taiwan is to fend off a Chinese invasion, it will need reluctant recruits like Roger Lin to summon the patriotism that inspired older generations but these days doesn’t burn as passionately in the young.
The 21-year-old French-language major regards his upcoming mandatory four-month military service as an unnecessary burden, even as complaints persist that such stints are too short to protect the nation compared with the two to three years that previous generations served.
Weeks of flaring tensions between China and Taiwan, which has been buzzed by dozens of Chinese warplanes in a disquieting show of force, have not emboldened Lin or changed his mind. If China and its much larger military decides to invade, the island’s devastation would be a fait accompli, he said, even with the outside chance the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense.
“The faster those four months pass, the better. It’s a waste of time,” Lin, swiping at his phone at a cafe on the campus of National Chengchi University in Taipei, said of his military service. “I don’t think the U.S. government will help us anyway. Whether they do or not, for us ordinary people, the outcome will be the same.”
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