The Ministry of National Defense wishes to elaborate on questions raised from the media coverage of Control Yuan’s investigation on “1,642 reservists who evaded muster-calls in 3 years were handed over to the law:

Ⅰ. Statistics shows that, among the people that had been mustered between 2015 and 2017, 1,642 people who have not reported to duty were handed over to the law by the Reserve Command (679 people in 2015, 498 people in 2016, and 465 people in 2017), which is only about 0.41% of the total number of people mustered. Taken into the fact that the number of people being handed over to the law decreases every year, it is evident that most reservists are law-abiding and “report to their duties once being mustered”.

Ⅱ. To avoid reservists seeking excuses from not reporting to muster-call duties by going abroad, such reservists have been listed since 2016 by the Ministry of National Defense as priority for muster-calls the following year. As a result, there has been an clear drop of reservists who seek exemption from muster-calls by going abroad, from around 23,000 people in 2015 (17.4%), around 21,000 people in 2016 (16.2%), to around 16,000 people in 2017 (12.3%).

Ⅲ. Considering the demands for warfare and soldiers, muster-calls for mandatory military service reservists (low to medium expertise) have been changed from “4 muster-calls within 8 years” to “2 muster-calls within 8 years” since 2015, while there has been no change to muster-calls for medium to high expertise mandatory military reservists, which stays at “4 muster-calls within 8 years”. By boosting replacement frequency, the Ministry of National Defense wishes to increase the number of reservists to be trained so that it can support further mobilization momentum, as well as maintaining fairness for muster-calls.

Ⅳ. Under the current 4-month military training service scheme, soldiers receive basic training (for  5 weeks) before being sent to 2^nd expertise training according to the quota for low to medium expertise soldiers within the reservist forces, so that adequate reservist forces can be established.

Ⅴ. In recent years, the Ministry of National Defense actively promotes “total citizen defense” education and carries out a variety of events, such as opening up the military compounds, summer (winter) combat camps, and senior officers going to schools, with an expectation that all citizens can better understand the threats from the enemy, increase the mental preparedness, identify with the ideals of all the islanders as one people and affirm the will of total defense and mobilization.

Ⅵ. To enhance the armed forces’ reserve mobilization and the results of muster-call trainings, the Ministry of National Defense wishes to assure all citizens that it continues to review and improve reserve mobilization policies, scale of forces, organizations, and muster-call training measures based on assessment of enemy threats and the changes of military service system, so that the reserve force can be strengthened to effectively support the standing forces in combats for national defense.