Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) yesterday accused the party leadership of overstepping its authority, after KMT lawmakers were told to vote for a defense budget bill they had not reviewed.
Jaw made the remarks at a conference with KMT lawmakers, where party members on key legislative committees said they had not seen the bill that the KMT-run National Policy Foundation drafted.
President William Lai (賴清德) in November last year announced a NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.44 billion) special defense budget, to be allocated over eight years, which included arms purchases from the US.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
After repeatedly blocking the bill, the opposition-controlled legislature on Friday last week agreed to allow the Executive Yuan’s proposal to proceed for review tomorrow, alongside a NT$400 billion version drafted by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and a version from the KMT.
The deadline gave the KMT little time to hammer out an alternative to the Executive Yuan’s proposal, as the party caucus is scheduled to convene today.
KMT legislators Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯) and Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) told Jaw that they have not seen the document.
“It is absurd that Hsu of the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee and Lai of the Finance Committee have not seen the [party’s] version of the budget,” Jaw said.
“The party’s think tank cannot replace the caucus,” he said. “It is not acceptable that the foundation did not give lawmakers a proposal that they were supposed to discuss the next day.”
Jaw urged the party leadership and lawmakers to compromise by passing a NT$350 billion portion of the government’s special defense bill, while suspending the remaining NT$810 billion, pending a detailed review of the items.
Hsu said the party lawmakers’ view is to pass the portion of the budget allocated for buying arms from the US as part of the special budget.
Spending items earmarked for domestic arms manufacturers should be relisted under the regular budget to allow legislative oversight, she said.
The KMT caucus believes the government should use punitive clauses against delayed arms deliveries as leverage in negotiating with Washington, to ensure the timely acquisition of weapons, Hsu said.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government must take full responsibility for delays should it refuse to hold the US accountable for late arms transfers, she said.
Jaw echoed her statements, saying that Taipei has a responsibility to pressure Washington regarding the weapons the nation is paying for.
Separately, DPP spokesperson Han Ying (韓瑩) told a post-Central Committee meeting that the KMT seems unable to come up with a working alternative to the government’s budget despite the nation’s urgent need for an air defense system.
The DPP in a statement expressed “concern” over the leaked outlines of the KMT’s and the TPP’s special defense budget proposals, saying that the opposition’s bills omitted critical spending items for the “T-Dome” air defense network.
The Iron Dome and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems utilized by Israel and Saudi Arabia have successfully intercepted 95 percent of Iranian missiles in the ongoing clashes, which highlighted Taiwan’s need for a comparable system, it said on Facebook.
“An integrated air defense system for Taiwan is self-evidently important in the face of the relentless threat posed by China,” it said. “Yet, we find to our disbelief that funding for the T-Dome is absent from the KMT’s and the TPP’s bills.”
The opposition’s “reckless cuts” to the defense project are tantamount to neutering the system into helplessness against the Chinese threat, the DPP said, adding that the opposition should show trust in Taiwan’s military experts and support the central government’s bill.
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