The Ministry of National Defense today decried a proposal by the opposition to cut NT$150 billion (US$4.95 billion) allocated to defense resilience from the Executive Yuan’s NT$410 billion special budget request, saying that Chinese threats toward Taiwan could become violent at any time.
The Legislative Yuan’s economic and finance committees jointly reviewed the Cabinet’s special budget today, with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party caucuses proposing to cut the portion of the budget intended for “whole-of-society defense resilience.”
The ministry in a report to lawmakers said that enhancing overall defense capabilities and information security is an urgent matter, as China’s threats toward Taiwan have been increasing and it could at any time shift its military exercises to violent aggression.
Photo from Legislative Yuan livestream
The ministry recommended that the budget be retained, as it would provide backup support in the case of military conflict or natural disasters, enhancing homeland security resilience.
In its efforts to infiltrate Taiwan, China often uses cyberwarfare and destroys undersea cables to disrupt Taiwan’s information and communication systems, the ministry said.
Increasing the resilience of these systems is urgent, as China would attempt to paralyze them in a conflict, it said.
Given that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would likely involve a joint blockade and amphibious assaults, the military needs to prepare enough resources to sustain operations and combat capabilities against enemy sabotage, the ministry said.
Therefore, there is an urgent need for secure storage facilities to stockpile essential resources, it added.
The opposition parties’ proposed tariff response bills do not include any items related to national defense, the ministry said.
Regarding the opposition parties’ proposal for a universal cash payment of NT$6,000 or NT$10,000, the Ministry of Finance yesterday said that the nation’s long-term development needs to be considered to effectively strengthen economic and social resilience.
This requires a rational allocation of resources, so universal cash distributions should be carefully deliberated with this in mind, it said.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee today voted to unfreeze NT$1.1 billion of the defense ministry’s budget among the NT$74.4 billion that had been frozen.
The proposal is to now go to the full chamber for a vote.
The 54 budgetary items the ministry requested to be unfrozen include funds to purchase new rifles, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said.
Apart from a request to unfreeze the indigenous submarine budget, as the prototype has not yet finished sea trials, the ministry has already requested that the remaining items be unfrozen, Koo said, urging legislators to quickly review the reports, as if the budgets are not unfrozen by the end of this month, it would “seriously impact” the ministry’s operations.
Additional reporting by Chen Hsing-hung and Huang Ching-hsuan
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