If the opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan continues to block a proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.6 billion) special defense budget, the international community could misunderstand Taiwan’s determination to defend itself, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday.
Pressure from politicians in the US — Taiwan’s most important international backer and arms supplier despite a lack of formal diplomatic ties — has grown on the Legislative Yuan not to hold up defense spending.
US Senator Ruben Gallego yesterday shared on X a Bloomberg report that “Taiwan’s opposition parties have advanced a bill that would slash a special military budget, potentially jeopardizing the purchases of billions of dollars of US weapons aimed at deterring the threat of invasion by China.”
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Commenting on the report, Gallego wrote: “Now is not the time to weaken Taiwan’s defenses. Cutting their defense budget undermines investments in essential weapons systems just as China’s threats are intensifying. Taiwan’s parliament should reconsider this move.”
Gallego’s move follows that of his colleagues in the US Senate.
On Monday, US Senator Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services and one of the strongest advocates for Taiwan in the US Congress, wrote on X that he was “disappointed” to see Taiwan’s opposition parties slash Lai’s defense budget.
Another US lawmaker, Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, a staunch supporter of US President Donald Trump’s administration, directly criticized the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), whose senior officials are visiting Beijing.
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s going on here,” he wrote on X, in reference to the visit. “I’ve warned before — short changing Taiwan’s defense to kowtow to the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] is playing with fire.”
Following their critiques, Lai said at a meeting at the Democratic Progressive Party’s headquarters in Taipei that if the opposition continued blocking the Executive Yuan’s proposed defense spending and presses on with its own version, “this is bound to delay improvements to [Taiwan’s] defense capabilities.”
That “could lead the international community to misunderstand Taiwan’s determination to defend itself and to safeguard peace in the Indo-Pacific” region, the party quoted the president as saying.
The opposition-dominated legislature has blocked the Cabinet’s budget plan, including missiles and drones as well as the new “T-Dome” air defense system, pushing instead for a proposal to fund only certain US arms, rather than the entire package.
The KMT has said that while it supports strengthening Taiwan’s defenses, it has a right to fully scrutinize government spending plans and would not sign “blank checks.”
“We thank members of the US Senate for their valuable input,” it said in an English-language statement.
“The KMT remains fully committed to safeguarding Taiwan’s security, strengthening our defense capabilities, and also engaging constructively through dialogue to advance peace and stability across the Strait,” it said.
China regularly stages military exercises around Taiwan, and refuses to talk to Lai, calling him a “separatist.”
Lai says only Taiwanese can decide their future.
“We should uphold the concept that the ‘two sides of the Strait are one family,’” Wang Huning (王滬寧), China’s top official in charge of Taiwan policy, told KMT Vice Chairman Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) during a meeting in Beijing earlier yesterday.
Both the KMT and the CCP must “resolutely oppose Taiwan independence separatism and interference by external forces, and jointly safeguard peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” state media quoted Wang as saying.
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