Despite -- or because of -- American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Stephen Young's recent comments, pan-blue lawmakers once again refused to take action on a long-stalled US arms procurement package yesterday.
Young on Thursday urged the legislature to approve the package this fall.
While the committee was convening yesterday, dozens of people from the Anti-Arms Purchasing Alliance led by independent Legislator May Chin (高金素梅) staged a protest, shouting "oppose arms purchase."
PHOTO: CNA
Altercations occurred when dozens of legislative police officers attempted to prevent the protesters from making their way to the conference room on the second floor where the committee was meeting. One police officer was slightly injured.
During the committee meeting, Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Liao Pen-yen (
Liu and Lee walked over to Liao and stood in front of him, to which Liao responded by hitting his desk.
"The KMT didn't dare to let the procurement through the Procedure Committee as it was afraid that the PFP would [retaliate by] siding with the pan-greens on the party assets statute," Liao said, referring to a statute aimed at divesting the KMT of its stolen party assets.
The KMT and PFP reached a consensus on Monday that there is no rush to review the arms budgets or the president's nominations for Control Yuan members and the nation's top prosecutor.
The effort to procure 12 P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, eight diesel-electric submarines and six Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) anti-missile batteries from the US has been stalled since 2004.
In its initial incarnation, the deal was submitted by the Cabinet to the legislature as a NT$610.8 billion (US$16 billion) special budget.
After a series of revisions and price cuts, the latest effort to procure the weapons systems has taken the form of a NT$6.2 billion supplemental budget, which would provide initial funding for only part of the three programs.
The supplemental budget includes initial funding for the purchase of the P-3Cs, the upgrading of PAC-2 anti-missile batteries, and partial funding for the submarine design, as well as NT$700 million for building an airstrip on Taiping Island.
Muddying the waters is the fact that the special budget -- reduced to NT$340 billion for the 12 P-3Cs and the eight subs only -- is still before the legislature.
The Executive Yuan last Tuesday proposed a motion to remove the special arms budget from consideration and put the supplemental budget on the legislative agenda, but both requests were turned down by the committee.
Almost the same sequence of events played out yesterday.
Independent Legislator Li Ao (
Meanwhile, a US weekly reported on Monday that Taiwan's ties with the US have eroded to an unprecedented degree amid the defense budget gridlock.
According to the latest edition of Defense News, lawmakers are trying the US' patience.
Washington insists that the arms it has offered Taiwan are necessary to maintain the nation's defensive capabilities in the face of a rapidly expanding Chinese military.
"Adding a degree of bewilderment to US officials' disappointment, one legislator popped a canister of noxious gas during the debate [on the bill], forcing his colleagues to flee in tears ... [Such] antics do little to ease the growing perception in Washington that Taiwan's appetite for standing up to China may be waning," the report states, referring to Li's actions.
The report quoted a former AIT official who suggested China is behind the pan-blue camp's efforts to stymie the defense budget.
"Chinese medals will be awarded to some legislative members for blocking this budget," the unnamed official was quoted as saying, adding that pan-blue lawmakers' personal business interests in China were also behind their opposition to strengthening the nation's military.
"Too many pro-China legislators [in Taiwan] have investments in China, even own factories. China is having a good time seeing its agents in Taiwan work so well," a senior Taiwan defense official was also quoted as saying in the report.
also see stories:
MND defends efforts to win arms deal
Editorial: National defense starts at home
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
RSS