The Executive Yuan has published the government budget for next year. The NT$346 billion (US$11.28 billion) national defense allocation represents an NT$18.3 billion, 5.6 percent increase from the NT$327.7 billion budgeted for this year. It would thus appear as if President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is delivering on her election pledge.
However, if the advance military-personnel salary adjustment of NT$4.5 billion in the budget for this year is deducted, the actual increase only amounts to NT$13.6 billion, or 4.15 percent. As a proportion of GDP, the defense budget for next year almost reaches 2 percent, slightly higher than last year’s 1.86 percent and this year’s 1.84 percent.
China wants to annex Taiwan and it is clearly prepared to go as far as using military force to achieve that end. Facing an enemy that even the US sees as its greatest threat is a great challenge, and Taiwan is left with no other way out than to do all it can to strengthen its self-defense capabilities and always be prepared for the worst, while at the same time strengthening military cooperation with the US, Japan and other countries to be able to resist a Chinese invasion attempt.
Over the past few years, US lawmakers, military officials and think tanks have repeatedly said that only by raising national defense spending to 3 percent of GDP would Taiwan be able to build effective defense capabilities. However, there has always been a great discrepancy between reality and that goal, and this is not sufficient to show that the nation’s leader is determined to do whatever is necessary to defend it or to persuade allies that Taiwan is determined to bolster its national defense.
In the 2018 Military Strength Ranking published by the Global Firepower Web site, an authoritative source on global military power, Taiwan was ranked 24th in the world, dropping six spots from last year.
China’s military expenditure has increased sharply, triggering the US to launch an Indo-Pacific strategy and greatly increase its own military spending. It has also drawn attention from neighboring countries.
Japan, for instance, has significantly raised its national defense budget for six consecutive years, reaching ¥5.2 trillion (US$46.6 billion) this year.
The Philippines has increased its national defense budget by 5.5 percent this year; Vietnam has increased its military spending by 253.8 percent over the past 10 years; Thailand’s defense budget for next year is to increase by 4.2 percent; and South Korea has raised its defense budget by 6.9 percent this year.
The Chinese military threat is the main reason that these countries have increased their military spending. However, Taiwan, the main target of China’s military threats, remains passive.
Let us not even talk about how absurd it is that almost half of Taiwan’s military budget is spent on personnel expenditures, while China’s military spending has increased greatly for several consecutive years, from 808.2 billion yuan (US$118.02 billion at the current exchange rate) in 2014, to 886.9 billion yuan in 2015, 954.35 billion yuan in 2016, 1.044 trillion yuan last year and 1.11 trillion yuan this year. That is about 16 times larger than Taiwan’s defense budget and second only to the US.
China is the world’s second-largest military power, showing that the cross-strait military imbalance continues to grow. This poses a serious threat to Taiwan’s national defense and supports former AIT director William Stanton’s view that “Taiwanese people do not worry enough” and that “Taiwan security policy needs to demonstrate its determination to defend.”
Lau Yi-te is chairman of the Taiwan Solidarity Union.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming.
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