President William Lai’s (賴清德) announcement on Friday last week to increase defense spending to at least 3 percent of GDP this year via a special budget is a welcome and long-overdue measure. The spending commitment demonstrates to Taiwan’s allies its commitment to bolstering deterrence and sends a clear signal of military resolve in the face of Beijing’s threats.
Spending more on defense helps to stabilize the region by reinforcing the “status quo” and reduces the strategic burden on the nation’s allies, allowing for a more balanced distribution of security responsibilities in the region. It also helps Taiwan assert more strategic autonomy in defending itself.
The announcement was clearly planned long in advance. After US President Donald Trump’s election victory in November last year, the Financial Times reported that Taiwanese officials were planning a special budget of up to US$15 billion to purchase an “aggressive package of American hardware” to demonstrate that the nation is serious about defense.
However, the report also sent mixed signals, as it said that in addition to procuring Patriot missiles, Taiwan would seek to procure traditional platforms such as F-35 jets, Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates. Although the big-ticket items would be important platforms to counteract Beijing’s “gray zone” air and sea incursions, they are not cost-effective, would take too long to deliver, are not conducive to asymmetric warfare and would do little to bolster deterrence against a Chinese invasion.
Such purchases would not be in line with the defense priorities of the Trump administration, which is for Taiwan to prioritize asymmetric warfare and focus on “deterrence by denial” — a military strategy of making the cost or risk of an invasion too high — rather than going toe-to-toe with China’s much larger forces at land and sea.
For this Taiwan would need to procure weapons such as drones, anti-ship missiles, high-mobility rocket launchers and cruise missiles.
As Institute for National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said, purchasing more arms from the US should be made with Taiwan’s strategic needs in mind. Only after acquiring sufficient missiles and drones should Taiwan turn back to acquiring larger platforms.
While Lai did not announce what Taiwan would procure with the special funding, sources have said the package would include coastal defense cruise missiles and High Mobility Artillery Rocket System rockets. These are positive signs and show that Taiwan and the US are trending toward the same page on defense procurements.
The question is whether the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party, which have a combined majority in the legislature, would acquiesce to defense budget increases and approve the special budget. They have already caused plenty of chaos by attempting to cut and freeze the central government’s budget and the defense budget.
The KMT has previously harmed the nation by blocking defense budgets. In 2001 during the administration of then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), the US approved a massive sale of arms worth more than US$15 billion, but the pan-blue camp blocked consideration of the special budget 56 times. The government had to give up, and late in Chen’s second term a watered-down version of the arms package totaling US$194 million was passed, not as a special budget, but added to the normal defense budget.
These farcical proceedings not only harmed Taiwan’s defense modernization, but also sent a signal to the US and other allies that the nation was not serious about improving its defense capabilities.
For regional stability, Taiwan’s self-defense and its reliability as an ally, the nation cannot afford a repeat of that episode.
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