As regional security risks intensify and Taiwan’s military readiness becomes ever more urgent, President William Lai (賴清德) has launched his “Ten Talks on Uniting the Country,” with the fourth session outlining the government’s national defense strategy. Yet the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has chosen to politicize the defense budget instead of engaging constructively.
Not only has the KMT refused to reflect on its malicious freezing of key force-building projects, but it has also misrepresented the budget review process and distorted data.
The KMT claims that during former president Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration, the defense budget’s share of GDP reached a record low. However, this argument completely disregards the Special Budget for Enhancing Naval and Air Combat Power, initiated in 2021 and totaling NT$237.3 billion (US$8.07 billion).
This special budget is a crucial investment aimed at procuring precision missiles, mass-producing high-performance naval vessels and improving the Coast Guard Administration’s wartime transition capabilities — key components for bolstering Taiwan’s overall defense resilience.
Moreover, in recent years, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration has also allocated funds for improving military barracks, renewing old veterans’ villages, advancing defense medical education and improving military supply production capacity. If we combine regular budgets, special budgets and fund allocations, the total defense budget grew from NT$358.5 billion in 2016 to NT$647 billion, as originally proposed for last year — an increase of more than 80 percent. This demonstrates a firm commitment to the policy of “preparing for war to prevent war, being able to fight in order to avoid fighting.”
Nevertheless, the KMT has launched an aggressive campaign on social media, deliberately citing only selective portions of the overall defense budget, excluding special and fund-based expenditures. This misleading tactic deceives the public and contributes nothing to a substantive policy discussion.
During the review process for the 2025 defense budget, KMT legislators initiated numerous proposals for malicious cuts and freezes. These targeted items such as the development of a drone industrial park funded by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology and the indigenous submarine program, in which 50 percent of funding for some projects was frozen.
Budgets intended for military exchanges, ammunition and fuel replenishment, and general military operations were also frozen, which accounted for 30 percent of the Ministry of National Defense’s operational expenses, totaling NT$74.4 billion.
These freezes disrupt the military’s normal force-building timeline and even prompted US Senator Dan Sullivan to say that the KMT was “playing a dangerous game.”
What is truly shocking is that the KMT on social media say that “only 1.06 percent of the 2025 defense budget was cut, the lowest in recent years,” attempting to portray itself as cautiously supportive of defense.
However, this figure was based on the first-phase budget review in the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, not the final version, passed after the opposition’s sweeping cuts. In other words, the KMT deliberately conflated its own initial freeze proposals with the final outcomes, thereby misleading the public and severely undermining the professionalism and credibility of the legislative process.
Such selective disclosure of information has turned the Legislative Yuan’s budget system into a political tool, damaging procedural justice and eroding public trust in national defense and the legislature.
A critical question remains: Why does the KMT freeze core defense funding crucial to national security, while simultaneously making a show of supporting pay raises and benefits for soldiers, attempting to create a false image of “rational support for the military”?
This two-faced approach, which involves sabotaging force development on one hand and pandering to military morale on the other, is irresponsible and harmful to national security.
Instead of reflecting on its reckless cuts to the defense budget, the KMT has resorted to manipulative rhetoric, falsely accusing the DPP of not supporting the military in an attempt to shift political blame and mislead public opinion.
National defense is not a partisan issue; it is the lifeline of Taiwan’s collective security. Treating the defense budget as a political bargaining chip only weakens troop morale and shakes international allies’ confidence in Taiwan’s determination to defend itself.
Only by honestly confronting the legislature’s role and rationally reviewing the budget could we truly demonstrate support for our armed forces and safeguard Taiwan’s front line.
Gahon Chiang is a congressional staff member in the office of DPP Legislator Chen Kuan-ting, focusing on Taiwan’s national security policy.
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter used a structured question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Mitter highlights the differences between the repressive and authoritarian People’s Republic of China and the vibrant democracy that exists in Taiwan, saying that Taiwan and China “have had an interconnected relationship that has been both close and contentious at times.” However, his description of the history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. First, he writes that “Taiwan was always broadly regarded by the imperial dynasties of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will stop at nothing to weaken Taiwan’s sovereignty, going as far as to create complete falsehoods. That the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never ruled Taiwan is an objective fact. To refute this, Beijing has tried to assert “jurisdiction” over Taiwan, pointing to its military exercises around the nation as “proof.” That is an outright lie: If the PRC had jurisdiction over Taiwan, it could simply have issued decrees. Instead, it needs to perform a show of force around the nation to demonstrate its fantasy. Its actions prove the exact opposite of its assertions. A
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
RSS