Some countries such as Singapore require permanent residents to be conscripted. Should Taiwan do the same and require APRC holders to do military training? What are your thoughts?
sounds legit for the right to vote and citizenship pathway.
just remember if you are captured, there will be this guy by the username pastry on the Japanese expat forum talking about how you are a mercenary instead of a legit soldier in the Taiwanese ranks.
If they made permanent residents eligible for conscription, I’d be outta here. Just being honest. Although I think at 40, I’m already too old for service. And I have a health condition that might make me ineligible anyway.
And unironically, he might very well be right in a pragmatic way. PR residents won’t be really recognized as your geneva convention protected soldiers. You’d be all called out as NATO operatives and could be made examples of. But then again the taiwanese citizens will probably not be protected either because it’d be defined as a civil war.
Singapore is a slightly different case because around 10% of their population are PRs and they need pretty much all hands on deck if there ever is a situation due to their small size. I still wouldn’t be okay with that but SG isn’t under immediate threat so i’d be willing to take these odds until i’d get naturalized.
Maybe there’s a better scenario you could include in the OP that could be an actual dilemma : You can get your PR procedure fast tracked by doing, say, 3 consecutive years instead of 5 +1 year of conscription. An alternate pathway to PR.
Based on this document Singapore is such a nice place.
Exemptions for rich:
Main applicants who are granted PR status under the Professionals/Technical Personnel and Skilled Workers Scheme or the Investor Scheme, are exempted from NS.
Collective punishment for plebs:
Renouncing or losing one’s PR status without serving or completing full-time NS will also adversely affect your family members’ applications for long-term immigration facilities, their ability to sponsor such facilities, their renewal of Re-Entry Permits, or their applications for Singapore citizenship.
If I had PR and this happened, I’d give up the PR without hesitation. I imagine there would be a huge exodus of PR holders if this happened, which would probably affect the economy.
If dual citizenship were allowed for all but a few random foreigners, and the Taiwanese military were known for their professionalism, skills building, useful and functional conscription program, spending wisely, lack of corruption, etc. I might at least have to think about giving up a year of my life for a quarter of the pay.
But based on my understanding of the overall situation, no PR should not even be considered at this time
Having a volunteer reserve force to start integrating foreigners into defense plans is a sensible start in that direction.
It would cause further isolation of Taiwan on the world stage. I think impact would be larger than you may expect.
Taiwan could instead invite foreigners with prior military experience or other qualifications to move to Taiwan and acquire PR with another 1-2 years of military service.