Tensions will come to a head Tuesday, when Taiwan’s parliament is due to vote on this year’s budget. The two parties that hold the majority are calling for substantial cuts, including to defense spending, that could complicate President Lai Ching-te’s plans to buy American arms both to fend off China and placate Trump. (Vincent De Groot/Air National Guard)
Taiwan is entering a period of political upheaval that could hinder its combat readiness amid intensifying military intimidation from China - just as Donald Trump, who has previously questioned why the United States should defend the island, is inaugurated.
Tensions will come to a head Tuesday, when Taiwan’s parliament is due to vote on this year’s budget. The two parties that hold the majority are calling for substantial cuts, including to defense spending, that could complicate President Lai Ching-te’s plans to buy American arms both to fend off China and placate Trump.
Cutting the defense budget would send the wrong signal to the United States, said Wellington Koo, Taiwan’s defense minister.
“Frankly speaking, after the Trump administration takes office, we need to demonstrate our determination to uphold our self-defense capabilities,” Koo said at a news conference Thursday.
The gridlock in Taiwan comes as South Korea, another of the United States’ closest security partners in Asia, is mired in a political crisis that is undermining Washington’s efforts to build alliances and constrain China’s influence in the region.
The political turmoil in Taiwan came to a head in late December when federal prosecutors sought a 28-year jail sentence on corruption charges for Ko Wen-je, then the leader of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), the smaller opposition party that is aligned with the much larger Kuomintang (KMT) in the parliament.
Ko, 65, the former mayor of Taipei, ran a surprisingly successful campaign in last year’s presidential election, with his party’s strong performance key to why Lai’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lost its legislative majority.
But prosecutors allege Ko took $520,300 in bribes and embezzled political donations both as mayor and while running for president. Ko denies the charges.
Those charges have further stoked political divisions that began as soon as Lai took office, when the KMT and Ko’s TPP proposed giving the legislature sweeping powers to investigate political opponents.
The struggle for control spread to the Constitutional Court when the opposition forced through an amendment that effectively blocks Taiwan’s highest judicial body from declaring any laws unconstitutional, paralyzing the court.
Now, with Ko’s indictment, the KMT and TPP are accusing Lai of abusing his powers to politically influence the judiciary. Opposition supporters have been holding large-scale demonstrations in recent weeks. “It’s political persecution,” said Sharon Yu, a 45-year-old technology worker who joined protests to support Ko and call for an end to “DPP tyranny” on Saturday.
The KMT and TPP parties, both of which favor closer ties with Beijing, have joined forces to stymie Lai’s agenda. This week, they proposed cutting or freezing $6 billion in defense spending, amounting to a whopping 44 percent of the total defense budget.
They also want to reduce the funding for military equipment purchases by $155 million. Although this amounts to only 3 percent of that budget, any cuts are likely too big for Trump, who has called for Taiwan to pay more for American defense help.
Taiwanese defense officials have said that projects, such as submarine manufacturing and the construction of a drone industrial park, cannot move forward until the bill is approved.
A delay in approving the defense budget would be another setback for Lai’s ambitious military reforms, which experts consider critical to deterring an attack from the much larger and better-equipped Chinese military.
Lai took office in May, pledging to stand up to China’s aggression while also standing up for the island democracy’s freedoms. Beijing views him as a “separatist” for his views on Taiwan’s sovereignty.
The Chinese Communist Party has never ruled Taiwan but claims the self-governing island of 23 million as part of its territory and regularly threatens to take control by force if Taipei ever formally rules out “unification.”
In the eight months since Lai took office, Beijing has escalated its military activity in the waters and air near Taiwan to the point where it is now routine. In three rounds of large-scale drills last year, the People’s Liberation Army probed Taiwan’s defenses and sent a warning to Lai about strengthening diplomatic ties with the United States.
Disagreements about how to deal with China are at the core of the deepening political rift in Taipei.
Debates over defense - “whether to increase the military budget or pay a ‘protection fee’ to Trump” - are being “turned into battlegrounds for partisan conflict,” said Chang Chun-hao, a politics professor at Tunghai University in Taichung.
The opposition camp’s effort to make Lai “unable to maneuver politically” has already forced him to take a more cautious approach on China and foreign policy, Chang said.
That could limit Lai’s options should Trump demand Taipei pay more for American weapons and support, as he has in the past.
“For Trump to take Taiwan seriously, it’s got to spend more on its defense,” said Richard McGregor, senior fellow for East Asia at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based think tank.
Washington retains close unofficial relations with Taipei. U.S. arms contractors supply the Taiwanese military with weapons and training to withstand Chinese military coercion and, if necessary, repel an invasion from across the Taiwan Strait.
While President Joe Biden repeatedly stated that he would come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese attack, Trump has declined to give a similar promise, instead calling for Taipei to pay for U.S. protection.
In multiple interviews last year, Trump accused Taiwan of unfairly replacing the United States as the world’s leading manufacturer of advanced semiconductors - a shift that happened in 2007. Such comments have raised concern in Taipei that Trump will take a more transactional and volatile approach to Taiwan.
Lai took office promising to accelerate his predecessor’s military reforms but got off to a slow start, delaying Taiwanese efforts to become more agile and deadly in the event of a Chinese invasion.
The Biden administration said Taiwan should deter Chinese leader Xi Jinping by building up a large stockpile of hard-to-destroy weaponry that can inflict severe damage on attacking troops.
Trump has given little indication of whether he will push Taiwan’s military to continue this approach. Shepherd reported from Singapore and Chiang from Taipei, Taiwan.
