TAIPEI, Sept 3 (Reuters) – Taiwan’s cabinet on Thursday proposed an additional T$145.7 billion ($4.59 billion) in defence spending for this year for systems including drones and anti-ballistic missiles.
Taiwan’s government has made defence modernisation and increased spending a core policy given stepped up military pressure from China, which views the democratically governed island as its own territory.
In May, Taiwan’s opposition-controlled parliament approved extra defence spending of $25 billion, about two-thirds of what the government had sought in a special budget, and only for spending on U.S. weapons, rather than also for domestic systems.
In a statement following a weekly meeting, the cabinet said, “there can be no gap in national defence”, and plans originally sought under the previous special budget were now being incorporated into this year’s new supplementary budget.
Systems to be bought will include a medium-tier, anti-tactical ballistic missile system, the cabinet said, which Taiwan’s defence ministry has previously said is the domestically developed Strong Bow missile.
Spending plans also incorporate more than 600 coastal surveillance and reconnaissance drones, over 40,000 coastal attack drones, and the first batch of over 100 small suicide drone boats, it added.
“National security cannot wait, the defence budget cannot wait, and defence self-reliance cannot wait either,” the cabinet said.
Last month, parliament approved a six-year plan to spend $240 billion on drones, which in principle sets annual spending at $40 billion, and rejected a competing government plan for $210 billion.
For next year, the government has proposed overall defence spending to top $1 trillion for the first time.
Taiwan, like U.S. allies in Europe and elsewhere, faces calls from Washington to spend more on its own defence, something President Lai Ching-te has enthusiastically embraced.
Lai rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying only the island’s people can decide their future.
($1 = 31.7470 Taiwan dollars)
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard: Editing by Sharon Singleton)
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