Taiwan’s opposition party agrees to study the president’s defense bill
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-tei’s US$40 billion defense spending plan will be reviewed in Parliament after an opposition party on Wednesday reversed its position and agreed to send the controversial bill to committee.
It was Lay’s suggestion I stopped for two months Lawmakers from the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), which together control parliament, refused to consider the matter without concessions from the government.
The TPP caucus agreed to send the government’s version of the special legislation to a committee for joint review, the party said in a statement.
However, KMT Chairwoman Ching Li-won vowed on Wednesday that her party “will not relent.”
Parliament is currently in recess and will resume its work on February 24.
In addition to the government’s version, lawmakers will also consider a simplified version of the defense bill introduced by the TPP that allocates $12.6 billion for military procurement.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership announcement came after Lai warned on Wednesday that Taiwan could constitute a “rift in peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region” if the special defense budget is not passed.
“We hope that given the increasingly complex regional situation, and with the increasing seriousness of the Chinese threat, Taiwan’s defense budget should be passed smoothly,” Lai said.
Taiwan has spent billions of dollars modernizing its army in the past decade, but it is under intense American pressure to do more to protect itself from the growing threat from China, which claims the island is part of its territory and has not ruled out using force to annex it.
A US senator warned that the Kuomintang was “playing with fire” as it cut off its own defense budget.
Lai, whose Democratic Progressive Party lost its parliamentary majority in the elections that brought him to power in 2024, He pledged to increase defense spending To more than three percent of GDP this year.
DPP Caucus Chairman Chung Chia-bin said that with the support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the special defense budget could finally move forward for committee review in the next parliamentary session.
“Strengthening national defense is a shared expectation across party lines. We are pleased that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is ready to join us in conducting a joint review of the bill,” he told AFP.
“We will make it a priority bill next session.”
The KMT caucus warned in a statement that the Cabinet’s version of the special defense budget “will never be passed.”
“Whether the Executive Yuan’s version is referred to a committee or not is irrelevant… The version that the legislature ultimately approves will not be its version, as the opposition parties are unlikely to accept it in full,” she said.
