Former US deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger today commended President William Lai's (賴清德) recent pledge to raise military spending, calling it an important signal of Taiwan's commitment to self-defense.
At the Halifax International Security Forum in Taipei, Pottinger, who served in the role from 2019 to 2021 during US President Donald Trump's first presidency, spoke about Lai's pledge to propose a special budget plan to increase Taiwan's defense spending to more than 3 percent of GDP.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Lai made the pledge, along with commitments to double down efforts on defense reforms and enhance civil protections, shortly after Trump accused Taiwan of "[taking] our chip business away" while again threatening tariffs on foreign semiconductors entering the US.
"It's really important as a signal to the United States and other countries about Taiwan's commitment to its defense," added Pottinger, who currently chairs the China Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Lai's pledged special budget, if successful, would bring Taiwan's defense expenditure on par with the US' share of GDP, Pottinger said.
Three percent "seems like a good bargain to me," considering Ukraine's current investment in its ongoing fights against Russian troops and the US' at the peak of the Cold War in the 1980s, he added.
Joining Pottinger at the HFX Taipei's talk were former US ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert, former Ukrainian parliamentarian Hanna Hopko and Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Fan Yun (范雲).
Taiwan's annual defense spending has hovered between 2 and 2.5 percent of GDP since former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office in 2016, but it has yet to surpass 3 percent.
It remains to be seen whether Lai's pledged defense increase, which would likely see Taipei purchasing more defense articles from Washington, would materialize because his party does not have a majority in the legislature and faces a strong backlash from the opposition.
For this fiscal year, the Cabinet initially earmarked NT$647 billion (US$19.76 billion) for the Ministry of National Defense, or 2.45 percent of GDP.
However, the final appropriation is still uncertain, after opposition lawmakers imposed several cuts and freezes at various stages of the budget review, some of which may have overlapped, leaving the executive branch to verify the final figures.
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS