Taiwan May Raise Defense Spending by 5%: Reports
Local media reports say Taiwan will raise its defense budget by 5% in 2025. But some say more still needs to be spent to counter the rising threat from China.
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00:00Taiwan could boost military spending by 5% next year.
00:04Local news agency United Daily reports the government plans to spend a record high amount
00:09on defense.
00:10Rick Lauert has been following developments for us from the capital Taipei.
00:14Rick, what does this number mean?
00:20So the figure we're talking about is 19 billion U.S. dollars on defense in 2025.
00:26As you mentioned, that's about 5% more than was spent this year, and it's going to amount
00:30to about between 2% and 2.5% of Taiwan's GDP.
00:34We should say that these are just local media reports.
00:37The cabinet has not officially put this proposal forward, and when they do, it will still need
00:41to be passed through the country's legislature before Taiwan can start spending that money.
00:47But what we do know is that Taiwan will most likely be spending this on its asymmetric
00:51war capabilities.
00:53These are weapons that will allow it to defend itself, things like anti-ship missiles, and
00:58I think they're also outlining some spending on long-range radar aircraft.
01:04And this is, of course, all going to counter that Chinese threat against Taiwan.
01:10Taiwan has said it's going to commit itself to bolstering its defenses, spending a lot
01:13of money as part of that.
01:14But it's also lengthened conscription for citizens, and it's also bolstering its local
01:21weapons manufacturing industry.
01:24But there are voices out there saying that Taiwan is not spending enough.
01:29Taiwan's main ally, the U.S., and also the provider of most of those weapons, wants Taiwan
01:33to be spending more than the 2% of its GDP on defense.
01:38And do you remember that the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, said that Taiwan should be footing
01:43a bill for the friendship it has with the U.S., which acts as that deterrence to China?
01:50And as you mentioned, this proposal will have to pass the legislature before Taiwan can
01:55start spending.
01:56Now, how easy will that be?
01:59Well, not that easy is the short answer.
02:03This is the first defense budget put forward by Lai Ching-de, since he became president
02:08in May.
02:09And while he is continuing a very similar plan to his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, he
02:14is facing a very different political situation.
02:17While his ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party, won the presidency in May, they lost
02:22control of the legislature.
02:24And opposition groups there have already taken control, and they've been putting through
02:28quite a lot of controversial bills that would curb some of the power of the executive branch
02:33that's been causing violence in the legislature and protests on the streets.
02:39So there's a real concern that bills like this could be dead in the water because of
02:43that opposition in the legislature.
02:46This has happened in Taiwan before, in the early 2000s when Taiwan also had a split government.
02:52And the ruling party is warning that if there is political action like this, Taiwan's national
02:58security could be at risk.