Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te vowed on Thursday to defend the island’s sovereignty, just days after Beijing concluded the “Justice Mission 2025” military drills near Taiwan.
President Lai pledged in his New Year’s address to firmly safeguard national sovereignty, strengthen national defense and the resilience of the whole society, and comprehensively construct an effective deterrence and democratic defense mechanism.
When questioned about the risk of a Chinese invasion, Lai said: “For Taiwan, the most important thing is, as stated in The Art of War by Sun Tzu, ‘Rely not on the likelihood of the enemies not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him.’ We must make the worst assumptions and also make the best preparations.”
Lai’s remarks followed China’s live-fire military drills near its shore. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense reported on Wednesday the detection of 77 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, 17 People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessels, and eight more “official ships” around Taiwan.
The action came after China objected to US President Donald Trump’s proposal of a $11.1 billion arms package to Taiwan, which would mark the largest-ever weapons transfer between the two countries. On December 26, China sanctioned 20 US defense firms and several executives for supporting Taiwan. Subsequently, on December 29, China’s military deployed Army, Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force troops to conduct joint drills around Taiwan as a “stern warning” against Taiwanese independence.
Taiwan has proposed a special US$40 billion defense budget allocated over eight years from 2026 to 2033 to fund arms purchases and develop the “Taiwan Dome,” an island-wide air defense system with advanced detection and interception capabilities. President Lai has also committed to raising overall defense spending to 5 percent of GDP by 2030.
In his New Year’s address, President Lai asserted the necessity of the defense budget, calling on opposition parties to prioritize national security over partisan differences.
Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers blocked the bill authorizing the special defense budget from being placed on the agenda for the upcoming Legislative Yuan plenary session on Wednesday, marking their fifth obstruction of the measure in December. KMT deputy secretary-general Wang Hung-wei criticized the 30 percent government expenditure to military allocation as excessive, drawing comparisons to Ukraine’s similar level of military spending during actual wartime, and Israel’s expenditure of only 14 percent. She demanded greater transparency, and a presidential report to the legislature on the question.
