Faced with the military threat of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — and for the sake of security across the Strait, in the region and around the globe — an adequate budget is crucial to ensuring the smooth operation of the Ministry of National Defense (MND), the army, the navy and the air force.
Opposition lawmakers, in particular the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), are proposing a NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) reduction to the indigenous submarine project, leaving only NT$200 million for this year. In addition, they have proposed freezing 70 percent of the MND’s operational budget, equivalent to NT$178.1 billion.
KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Szu-ming (林思銘) also proposed slashing the entire NT$76.25 million budget for an Aerospace and Drone Industry Park in Chiayi County. He later said the caucus would instead propose a freeze of 50 percent of the budget in a statement released after the party was slammed for weakening national defense.
Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) said the budget cuts and freezes would delay or have a severe impact on the military’s schedule for stepping up its combat readiness. The indigenous submarine project, Hai Kun (海鯤), is crucial to Taiwan’s underwater security, while its minelaying ships project, the production of modern rifles and the development of the Aerospace and Drone Industry Park would all be important during a potential conflict.
Hai Kun is the first indigenous submarine project implemented by the navy. Objectively, the initial construction and research phase will take a long time. A stable and predictable budget is necessary for the project to operate smoothly. If the submarine project does not receive sufficient funds, it would undermine the navy’s underwater combat capability.
Although minelaying ships are not considered capital ships within the navy, the military’s emphasis on innovative and asymmetric warfare capabilities means that they are essential to impeding the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s ability to land on Taiwan. When it comes to stepping up the navy’s combat readiness, the military power of traditional large battleships, as well as smaller and medium-sized ships, are all critical to ensuring that the navy is as strong and effective as possible.
The production of modern rifles and their distribution to the armed forces on the frontline are also key to national defense. Equally important is whether the military could acquire a sufficient number of domestically produced drones, which would depend on the development of the Aerospace and Drone Industry Park.
The importance of using drones to gather military intelligence and attack enemy targets during combat has already been demonstrated in the Ukraine war and the armed conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
The domestic production of drones would not only allow the military to keep up-to-date with new technologies, but would promote the development of relevant industries in central and southern Taiwan.
An adequate and stable defense budget is essential to safeguarding national security and improving the combat readiness of the military, regardless of whether the emphasis is on traditional or asymmetric warfare.
National defense is a public good. Enhancing national security through boosting the strength and capabilities of the military is beneficial to everyone in our country. The MND’s advice should be heeded.
Ray Song is a doctoral student at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies.
Translated by Fion Khan
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
After “Operation Absolute Resolve” to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the US joined Israel on Saturday last week in launching “Operation Epic Fury” to remove Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his theocratic regime leadership team. The two blitzes are widely believed to be a prelude to US President Donald Trump changing the geopolitical landscape in the Indo-Pacific region, targeting China’s rise. In the National Security Strategic report released in December last year, the Trump administration made it clear that the US would focus on “restoring American pre-eminence in the Western hemisphere,” and “competing with China economically and militarily
RSS