TAIPEI: Taiwan President Lai Ching-te’s US$40 billion defence spending plan will be reviewed in parliament after an opposition party on Wednesday (Feb 11) did a U-turn and agreed to send the contentious Bill to committee.
Lai’s proposal was stalled for two months as lawmakers from the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), which together control parliament, refused to consider it without concessions from the government.
The TPP caucus has agreed to send the government’s version of the special legislation to the committee for joint review, the party said in a statement.
KMT chairwoman Cheng Li-wun, however, vowed Wednesday that her party “will not relent”.
Parliament is currently in recess and will resume on Feb 24.
As well as the government’s version, lawmakers will also consider the TPP’s stripped-down version of the defence Bill that allocates US$12.6 billion for military purchases.
TPP’s announcement came after Lai on Wednesday warned that Taiwan could be a “rupture in Indo-Pacific peace and stability” if the special defence budget was not passed.
“We hope that, given the increasingly complex regional situation, with China’s threat growing more serious, Taiwan’s defence budget must pass smoothly,” Lai said.
Taiwan has spent billions of dollars upgrading its military in the past decade, but is under intense US pressure to do more to protect itself against 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 has warned that the KMT “is playing with fire” as it blocked the special defence budget.
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