TPP treats defense spending as wastefulBy John ChengAfter blocking the government’s eight-year, NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.72 billion) special defense budget, and following a hurried and unscheduled visit to the US, Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) unveiled his own defense procurement bill. Its headline feature is simple: a spending ceiling of NT$400 billion. Either way, Huang’s proposal is not aimed at building the kind of defense Taiwan needs. A dangerous political narrative also underlies the debate — that defense spending is waste and cutting it is virtue. The Ministry of National Defense should hold a news conference to show the public what the NT$1.25 trillion plan constructs, and what the NT$400 billion plan dismantles.
