Pledges by President William Lai (賴清德) to increase military spending are an important signal of Taiwan’s commitment to self-defense, former US deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger said at a Halifax International Security Forum event in Taipei (HFX Taipei) yesterday.
Pottinger, who served from 2019 to 2021 during US President Donald Trump’s first term, was referring to Lai’s pledges to boost defense spending to more than 3 percent of GDP.
Lai made the pledges, along with commitments to double down on defense reforms and enhance civil protections, shortly after Trump, speaking with reporters in Washington, accused Taiwan of taking “our chip business away” while threatening tariffs on foreign semiconductors entering the US.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
“It’s really important as a signal to the United States and other countries about Taiwan’s commitment to its defense,” said Pottinger, who chairs the China Program at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Lai’s plan for a special budget, if successful, would bring Taiwan’s defense expenditure on par with the US’ in terms of share of GDP, Pottinger told HFX Taipei.
Three percent “seems like a good bargain to me,” considering Ukraine’s investment in its fight against Russian troops and the US’ at the peak of the Cold War in the 1980s, he said.
Former US ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert, former Ukrainian parliamentarian Hanna Hopko and Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) also attended HFX Taipei.
Taiwan’s annual defense spending has hovered between 2 and 2.5 percent of GDP since former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took office in 2016, but it has yet to surpass 3 percent.
It remains to be seen whether Lai’s pledges — which would likely result in Taiwan purchasing more defense articles from the US — will materialize because his party, the DPP, does not have a majority in the legislature and faces a strong backlash from the opposition.
For fiscal 2025, 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 during the budget review, some of which might overlap, leaving the executive branch to verify the final figures.
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