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.
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