{"id":55428,"date":"2026-03-14T07:03:57","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T07:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=55428"},"modified":"2026-03-14T07:04:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T07:04:06","slug":"booming-taiwan-can-well-afford-more-military-spending-president-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=55428","title":{"rendered":"Booming Taiwan can well afford more military spending, president says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p> (Reuters)   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>TAIPEI, March 14 &#8211; Taiwan can well afford \u200ba $40 billion special defence budget given its booming economy, President Lai Ching-te \u200csaid on Saturday, citing a U.S. emphasis on collective burden-sharing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lai&#8217;s proposed spending, which he says is needed to better face a rising threat from China, has been bogged down in parliament, where the \u200bopposition, which has a majority of seats, complains that the plans are \u200bunclear and says it cannot sign &#8220;blank cheques&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marking the 30th anniversary of Taiwan&#8217;s \u2060first direct presidential election, when China fired missiles into the waters around the island \u200bhoping to influence the result, Lai said in a speech that his government was \u200bdetermined to defend Taiwan and its hard-won democratic system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;With Taiwan&#8217;s economic growth, we can absolutely afford it,&#8221; he said of the eight-year special defence spending plan. &#8220;If we look at the United States&#8217; National Security \u200bStrategy, the U.S. emphasises collective defence and burden-sharing.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tech powerhouse Taiwan, the dominant producer of \u200badvanced semiconductors, has boomed thanks to demand for artificial-intelligence applications. Its&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/taiwan-revises-2026-economic-growth-forecast-higher-2026-02-13\/\">economy expanded<\/a>&nbsp;at its fastest pace \u200cin 15 \u2060years in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Reuters) TAIPEI, March 14 &#8211; Taiwan can well afford \u200ba $40 billion special defence budget given its booming economy, President Lai Ching-te \u200csaid on Saturday, citing a U.S. emphasis on collective burden-sharing. Lai&#8217;s proposed spending, which he says is needed to better face a rising threat from China, has been bogged down in parliament, where the \u200bopposition, which has a majority of seats, complains that the plans are \u200bunclear and says it cannot sign &#8220;blank cheques&#8221;. Marking the 30th anniversary of Taiwan&#8217;s \u2060first direct presidential election, when China fired missiles into the waters around the island \u200bhoping to influence the&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55429,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55428","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\/55428","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=55428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55430,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55428\/revisions\/55430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}