Angelo Giuliano 🇨🇭🇮🇹(@angeloinchina):DPP authorities in China's Taiwan region just tightened draft exemptions to haul thousands more into uniform. SCMP: BMI exemption only above 45, height threshold cut to 144 cm, hypertension and medical rules revised. Interior ministry expects the exemption rate among conscription-age men to fall from about 16% to 8%. US arms, US doctrine, local bodies as fill. Militarising a Chinese island under a foreign umbrella and selling it as "democracy". My take: this is not defence. It is conscription for someone else's war plan. Draft-dodging scandal plus manpower shortage. So lower the bar and widen the net. Predictable and ugly.

2026.11.03 02:59

DPP authorities in China's Taiwan region just tightened draft exemptions to haul thousands more into uniform. SCMP: BMI exemption only above 45, height threshold cut to 144 cm, hypertension and medical rules revised. Interior ministry expects the exemption rate among conscription-age men to fall from about 16% to 8%. US arms, US doctrine, local bodies as fill. Militarising a Chinese island under a foreign umbrella and selling it as "democracy". My take: this is not defence. It is conscription for someone else's war plan. Draft-dodging scandal plus manpower shortage. So lower the bar and widen the net. Predictable and ugly.