In response to China’s recent large-scale military maneuvers, Taiwan has announced an increase in its military budget. A record amount of several billion euros is planned for the coming year.
Under growing military pressure from China, Taiwan plans a sharp 13.9 percent increase in its defense spending next year. According to the draft budget presented by the government in Taipei, the military budget is to rise to 586 billion Taiwan dollars, the equivalent of 19 billion euros. This corresponds to 2.4 percent of the economic output of the democratic island republic. The Taiwanese Ministry of Defense justified the increase with the significant expansion of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s military activities with aircraft and ships near Taiwan.
Tensions between China and Taiwan reached a fever pitch this month when US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. The visit of America’s No. 3 was the highest from Washington to Taipei in a quarter century. In response, China launched large-scale maneuvers around Taiwan, firing ballistic missiles, one of which flew directly over the island not far from the capital. It was Beijing’s largest show of military power since the “missile crisis” over Taiwan in the mid-1990s.
The communist leadership rejects official contacts from other countries to Taipei because it regards the island as part of the People’s Republic. On the other hand, Taiwan, which has a population of 23 million, sees itself as independent and has been governed independently since before the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. Since the major maneuvers, Chinese planes and ships have continued to operate more intensively in the 130-kilometer-wide straits of the Taiwan Strait and repeatedly cross the center line, which had previously been the most respected. Since last year, Chinese military machines have been penetrating Taiwan’s air surveillance zone to test air defenses and increase pressure.