January 02, 2023: -In Taiwan, a plan to extend mandatory military service to one year from the present four months will be announced, a senior government official said, as the island markets with increasing Chinese military pressure.

The office of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen stated she would call a national security meeting to discuss reinforcing the island’s civil defence, pursued by a news conference on unspecified recent civil defence measures.

Tsai’s security team includes high-level officials from the defence ministry and the National Security Council, reviewing Taiwan’s military system from 2020 amid increased threats from China, according to the official.

On Monday, Taipei, rejecting Beijing’s sovereignty claims, which reports the largest-ever Chinese air force incursion into the island’s air defence fence identification zone, with 43 Chinese planes which cross an unofficial buffer between the two sides.

China also directed war games from Taiwan in August following a visit to Taipei by then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“China’s various unilateral behaviours are becoming a major concern for regional security,” stated the official, taking part in the high-level security discussion and declining to be named.

Under the plans to come into effect in 2024, the official said that conscripts would undergo more intense training, which includes shooting exercises and combat instruction used by U.S. forces.

They added that conscripts would be tasked with guarding critical infrastructure, enabling regular forces to answer more swiftly in the event attempted by China invaded. Taiwan’s defence ministry declined to comment.

Tsai oversees a comprehensive modernization program, which champions the idea of “asymmetric warfare”, making the island’s forces over mobile, agile, and harder to attack.

The official Central News Agency, which cited government and ruling party sources similar to the matter, first reported late Monday that Taiwan’s government would announce its plan to extend compulsory military service.

Taiwan has gradually shifted from a draftee military to a volunteer-dominated professional force. Still, China’s growing assertiveness towards the island it appropriates as its own and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted debate about how to promote defence. Russia calls the war a “special operation.”