The Legislative Yuan yesterday approved a bill authorizing the government to draft a special budget of up to NT$240 billion (US$8.63 billion) for arms procurements over the next five years.
The new law allows the government to use a special budget — which is not subject to the spending constraints of the normal budgeting process — to acquire mostly indigenous weapons to upgrade the nation’s anti-air and anti-surface capabilities.
The Executive Yuan would soon write a special budget based on the new law and submit it for review to lawmakers, said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟), a convener of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of National Defense via CNA
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) would then attend a hearing held by the Legislative Yuan to elaborate on the special budget and answer questions about it, Chao said.
Under the new law, the Ministry of National Defense would submit a written report to the legislature every May on the progress made in the previous year and the spending plan for the following year.
Eight types of weapon systems can be purchased under the special budget: shore-based anti-ship missiles, field and ground-based air defense systems, uncrewed aerial vehicles, air-to-ground and surface-to-surface cruise missile systems, high-performance submarines and weapon systems for the coast guard.
Photo: CNA
The production of the Taiwan-made Tien Kung (Sky Bow), Tien Chien (Sky Sword) and Hsiung Feng (Brave Wind) series of missiles would be supported by the budget, the ministry said.
When the Executive Yuan proposed the bill in September, Su said it was part of the effort to safeguard national sovereignty and security, as China continues to engage in military exercises near Taiwan.
COMMITMENT: The world’s biggest contract chipmaker said that its new 2nm chips, as well as next-generation, cutting-edge 1.4nm chips, will be produced in Taiwan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that the majority of its most advanced chips would continue to be manufactured in Taiwan and that it is boosting advanced chip packaging capacity to catch up with fast-growing demand driven by generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications like ChatGPT. Deeply rooted in Taiwan, TSMC is expanding production capacity for its most advanced 3-nanometer (nm) chips at its Tainan fab and is building new plants to produce new 2-nanometer chips in Hsinchu and Taichung in 2025. The chipmaker also plans to produce next-generation, cutting-edge 1.4-nanometer chips, which are currently under development, at home, it
FIRST STEP: Business groups in Taiwan welcomed the deal, which does not include tariff reductions at this stage, as they called for the elimination of double taxation Taiwan and the US yesterday signed an initial agreement under the US-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade. The agreement was signed yesterday morning by Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Managing Director Ingrid Larson in Washington, the Office of Trade Negotiations in Taipei said. The ceremony was witnessed by Minister Without Portfolio John Deng (鄧振中) and Deputy US Trade Representative Sarah Bianchi. Taiwan and the US started talks under the initiative in August last year, after Taipei was left out of the Washington-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. “The deal that will be signed tonight is not only very historic,
PASSAGE DISPUTE: A US and Canadian transit was a provocation and an attempt to ‘exercise hegemony of navigation,’ China’s defense ministry told a forum in Singapore The Ministry of National Defense yesterday urged the Chinese Communist Party to avoid provocative behavior after a Chinese navy ship crossed the paths of a US destroyer and Canadian frigate transiting the Taiwan Strait. A Chinese ship on Saturday “executed maneuvers in an unsafe manner in the vicinity of [the USS] Chung-Hoon,” an American destroyer, the US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement. The vessel “overtook Chung-Hoon on their port side and crossed their bow at 150 yards [137m]. Chung-Hoon maintained course and slowed to 10 [knots, 18.5kph] to avoid a collision,” the statement said. It then “crossed Chung-Hoon’s bow a second time
HARD-WON FREEDOM: Beijing’s 1989 crackdown on protesters has not been and should not be forgotten, as China tightens its grip on Hong Kong, Lai said Taiwanese enjoy democracy and freedom and have multiple ways to express their creativity, and hopefully young people in China would also one day have the freedom to sing and express themselves, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday, commemorating the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Yesterday was the 34th anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s bloody crackdown on student-led protests in Beijing in 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident. Tsai posted a photograph taken in March in a subway station in Guizhou, China, where hundreds of young people gathered to sing People With No Ideals Don’t Get Hurt (沒有理想的人不傷心), saying that they
RSS