Taipei: After US Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, China started a major military exercise by encircling Taiwan. While Taiwan is now preparing for a possible war with China, some of its youth gain weight and eat hamburgers to avoid joining the army. Now people’s attention has turned to such people of Taiwan, whom the Western media has been calling ‘Strawberry Soldier’ for a long time.
According to news in EuroAsianTimes, such people prefer stable careers, avoid military service, and want better relations with China. Social and economic factors like a stable career and want of money have created this generation of ‘strawberry soldiers’. These young people from Taiwan are the children of parents who provide an over-protected environment to children who are easily injured.
Taiwan’s military numbers have declined over the past decade after a phase-out of compulsory military recruitment following public pressure. Compulsory military service now entails four months of basic training, which is less than the earlier two years. It was first reduced to two years in 2008 and then halved in 2017. It is being told that some young men in Taiwan are deliberately gaining weight by eating McDonald’s hamburgers to avoid compulsory military enlistment.
Whereas other youths who joined the compulsory military enlistment said they had not learned to do anything meaningful in those four months. A 26-year-old youth from central Taiwan said his four months of basic training that ended last year consisted mainly of cleaning leaves, moving spare tires, and pulling weeds. He said his classes were meaningless except for some training in shooting.
