Translated by CDT from Elite Reference (青年参考):
In a Taiwan Defense Department report to its Legislative Yuan on Taiwanese armed forces’ combat morale level on December 12, more than half of the island’s military officials and soldiers say a war across the straits is likely, a sharp increase over the 17% who thought so before the start of a routine military education campaign on combat morale for the armed forces. The survey was conducted on 3,010 officials and soldiers.
Before the morale education session, 66% had “thought about” being infiltrated by enemies, now 85% think about it; before the session, 81% said they were willing to fight for their homeland, now that proportion has risen to 86%.
Military morale education was discontinued when former leader Lee Teng-hui came to power. But with dropping morale in the Taiwanese army, the program was picked up again as a routine in 2006, and was included as a week-long session during the Hanguang Exercise (汉光演习) in the hope such training would cement the cohesiveness of the army. [Full Text in Chinese]
