Taiwan’s pledge to increase defense spending to 3 percent of GDP demonstrates its seriousness about self-defense, former US secretary of the army Christine Wormuth told the Taiwan-US Defense Industry Forum in Taipei yesterday.
Wormuth, who served as secretary of the army from 2021 to early this year under former US president Joe Biden also praised the government for adopting a whole-of-society approach to self-defense.
The decisions are “substantial and significant,” and send an important message to Washington about “the seriousness with which the government here takes its responsibility to do what needs to be done,” she said.
Photo: CNA
The Cabinet this year earmarked NT$647 billion (US$21.62 billion) for defense spending, or 2.45 percent of GDP.
However, part of the budget was cut or frozen by the legislature.
President William Lai (賴清德) later pledged to propose a special budget to raise defense spending to more than 3 percent of GDP, although the plan would still require legislative approval.
Lai’s pledge came against the backdrop of US President Donald Trump raising questions about his support for Taiwan, having said on the campaign trail that Taiwan “stole our chip business” and needed to “pay us for defense.”
He has also suggested that Taiwan should pay the US for protection and proposed that it increase its defense spending to 10 percent of GDP.
Before becoming the first female US secretary of the army, Wormuth had decades of experience working in the US Department of Defense.
In her address yesterday, she said that while working in Washington for decades, she witnessed firsthand the strong consensus — shared by Democrats and Republicans — on the challenges posed by China, “not just for Taiwan, but for the entire Indo-Pacific region.”
However, over the past 20 years, the US military has been “extremely preoccupied” with events in the Middle East, during which time China modernized its military and engaged in coercive behavior in the Indo-Pacific region, including frequently sending warships and warplanes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, she said.
The most important task for Taipei and Washington is to do everything possible to boost their deterrence posture “so that on any given day, President Xi [Jinping, 習近平] and the Chinese leadership will wake up knowing today is not the day that we want to try to change the status quo,” she added.
The Taiwan-US Defense Industry Forum was cohosted by the US-Taiwan Business Council, a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 to promote trade relations between the two countries, with a special focus on the defense sector.
Other speakers included Chris Decker, president of Virginia-based Planate Management Group, which has done extensive work for the department of defense; and Stayne Hoff, Asia-Pacific business development director at Puerto Rico-based firm Red Cat Holdings, which provides products, services and solutions to the drone industry.
The event was hosted by US-Taiwan Business Council president Rupert Hammond-Chambers.
The event aimed to explore the potential for Taiwan-US coproduction and partnerships in drones and uncrewed vehicles, the council said.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
US-CHINA SUMMIT: MOFA welcomed US reassurance of no change in its Taiwan policy; Trump said he did not comment when Xi talked of opposing independence US President Donald Trump yesterday said he has not made a decision on whether to move forward with a major arms package for Taiwan after hearing concerns about it from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Trump’s comments on Taiwan came as he flew back to Washington after wrapping up critical talks in which both leaders said important progress was made in stabilizing US-China relations even as deep differences persist between the world’s two biggest powers on Iran and Taiwan. “I will make a determination,” Trump said, adding: “I’ll be making decisions. But, you know, I think the last thing we need right
TAIWAN ISSUE: US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on the first day of meetings that ‘it wouldn’t be a US-China summit without the Taiwan issue coming up’ There were no surprises on the first day of the summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday, as the government reiterated that cross-strait stability is crucial to the Asia-Pacific region, as well as the world. As the two presidents met for a highly anticipated summit yesterday, Chinese state media reported that Xi warned Trump that missteps regarding Taiwan could push their two countries into “conflict.” Trump arrived in China with accolades for his host, calling Xi a “great leader” and “friend,” and extending an invitation to visit the White House
RSS