Hsu Ruei-buo is one of the last Taiwanese men to be drafted to serve a year in the military and the college student looks forward to it, although he does not think his country needs him.
“To be honest,” he says, “if there is really a war between China and Taiwan, it is barely possible for us to win.”
In January, Taiwan will stop drafting young men into active duty as it moves to a professional military designed to be “stronger, smaller, smarter”, in the words of one retired officer. Taiwan will need to convince men such as Mr Hsu that they are needed as the country builds a force which strategists say will be better able to deter China, whose 2.3m-strong army is more than 10 times as large and whose growing defence budget is more than 14 times that of Taiwan.