Defense spending has yet to meet the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) demands that it comprise 3 percent of GDP, with a report by the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center early this month showing that it was at 2.14 percent, despite increasing spending and a special budget.
The DPP said in its 2014 Defense Blue Paper that defense spending by the administration of then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) did not reach 3 percent of GDP and was decreasing annually.
The paper urged the government at the time to increase spending to at least 3 percent of GDP.
Photo: Chiang Ying-ying, AP
The Budget Center’s report released on Aug. 1 showed that the annual budgets for the Ministry of National Defense from fiscal 2018 to fiscal 2023 under the DPP administration increased each year from NT$327.7 billion (US$10.25 billion) for 2018 to NT$409.2 billion for this fiscal year.
This year’s budget had NT$178.7 billion, or 43.66 percent, earmarked for “personnel operations,” NT$133.6 billion (32.64 percent) for “operations maintenance” and NT$97.0 billion (23.70 percent) for “military investment,” the report said.
The ministry also received a special budget of NT$45 billion for a new fighter jet program and NT$63.2 billion for its naval and air combat capability enhancement plans, bringing the ministry’s total budget to NT$517.5 billion, it said.
The report said that the overall budget is still experiencing difficulty due to rising costs for personnel and operations, which eat into the fund that can be used for equipment.
Payments for multiple foreign arms purchases need to be made soon, so the ministry must ensure that it has enough to fund autonomous defense programs, it added.
Institute for National Defense and Security Research analyst Shu Hsiao-huang (舒孝煌) on Wednesday said that if the government wants to have 3 percent of GDP spent on defense, it should foster systematic growth of spending instead of relying on special budgets.
With inflation taken into account, defense spending is not growing as much as the figures indicate, Shu said.
The ministry’s most significant problem is Taiwan’s declining birthrate, he said, adding that the military should consider sweeping changes to how it is structured and equipped, and introduce high technology and automated means to mitigate the lack of personnel.
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