males age 19-49: 5,883,828
females age 19-49: 5,680,773 (2005 est.)

Manpower fit for military service:
males age 19-49: 4,749,537
females age 19-49: 4,644,607 (2005 est.)

Manpower reaching military service age annually:
males age 18-49: 174,173
females age 19-49: 163,683 (2005 est.)

Military expenditures - dollar figure:
$7.93 billion (2005 est.)

Military expenditures - percent of GDP:
2.4% (2005 est.)

Transnational Issues Taiwan

Disputes - international:
involved in complex dispute with China, Malaysia, Philippines,
Vietnam, and possibly Brunei over the Spratly Islands; the 2002
"Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea" has
eased tensions but falls short of a legally binding "code of
conduct" desired by several of the disputants; Paracel Islands are
occupied by China, but claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam; in 2003, China
and Taiwan became more vocal in rejecting both Japan's claims to the
uninhabited islands of the Senkaku-shoto (Diaoyu Tai) and Japan's
unilaterally declared exclusive economic zone in the East China Sea
where all parties engage in hydrocarbon prospecting

Trafficking in persons:
current situation: Taiwan is primarily a destination for men,
women, and children trafficked for forced labor and sexual
exploitation; women from China and Southeast Asian countries are
trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced labor; women and
children, primarily from Vietnam, are trafficked through the use of
fraudulent marriages, deceptive employment offers, and illegal
smuggling for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor; a
significant share of foreign workers - primarily from Vietnam,
Thailand, and the Philippines - are recruited legally for
low-skilled jobs, and are subjected to forced labor or involuntary
servitude by labor agencies or employers upon arrival in Taiwan; to
a much lesser extent, there is internal trafficking of children for
sexual exploitation and trafficking of a small and declining number
of Taiwanese women to Japan for commercial sexual exploitation
tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - Taiwan is placed on the Tier 2
Watch List for its failure to show evidence of increasing efforts
over the past year to address trafficking, despite ample resources
to do so, particularly the serious level of forced labor and sexual
servitude among legally migrating Southeast Asian contract workers
and