Lai\u2019s party lacks a majority<\/a> in Taiwan\u2019s rough and tumble parliament, throwing doubt on his ability to pass legislation that will shore up US support \u2013 and the approval of a mercurial commander in chief in the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cIf there is not enough budget to consistently improve Taiwan\u2019s defense reforms and capabilities, the international community will doubt Taiwan\u2019s determination to defend ourselves,\u201d Lai said Tuesday in a Facebook post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lai\u2019s administration also slammed the opposition-backed budget freeze, which covers locally designed submarines and an indigenous drone program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The move was \u201csuicidal,\u201d Taiwan Premier Cho Jung-tai told reporters on Thursday, while Defense Minister Wellington Koo said it sent \u201cthe wrong signal to the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CNN \u2014 Hours after Donald Trump\u2019s chilly inauguration in Washington, Taiwan\u2019s parliament voted to freeze billions of dollars in defense spending, in a move some worry could frustrate the famously transactional president, who has already demanded Taipei pay \u201cmore\u201d for US protection. The US is the main ally and arms supplier of Taiwan, a democratically ruled island and semiconductor powerhouse, which China\u2019s Communist Party views as part of its territory \u2013despite never having controlled it \u2013 and has vowed to take one day, by force if necessary. The opposition-led vote to freeze defense spending highlights the domestic challenges facing Taiwan President Lai Ching-te even as… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44690,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44691,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44689\/revisions\/44691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}