Taiwan Church News
3437 Edition
8 – 14 January, 2018
Church Ministry

Former Defense Minster Urged Taiwan To Raise Defense Budget

Reported by Chiu Kuo-ring

On January 7, Elder Michael Tsai, former defense minister, delivered a speech entitled ” Military defense and cilivian-based-defense in Taiwan” at Ta-An Presbyterian Church of Chi-Hsin Presbytery. Just like his strong national defense policy about a decade ago, the former defense minister urged all Taiwanese should stand up against the threat of China’s People Liberation Army toward Taiwan.

Therefore, facing China’s more and more frequent military pressure via the round-the-island cruise of fighter jet or aircraft carrier, Elder Tsai specially called President Tsai Ing-wen to waive her conciliatory stance toward China and immediately raise Taiwan’s annual defense budget to 3% of GDP(Gross Domestic Product) in order to demonstrate our firm belief: Taiwan is Taiwan, not the so-called “Chinese Taipei”.

Comparing Taiwan’s 2018 national defense budget, 1.8% GDP, with her major allies like USA(3.5%GDP), Japan(3%GDP), South Korea(3.5%GDP), Elder Tsai showed his great worry about the deteriorating of Taiwan’s fragile security. He also reminded the audience that even Switzerland, as a neutral country with 5 million population and pledged to eternal peace, has a high stakes defense budget of 32% GDP and committed to a thorough civilian-based-defense, how come Taiwan could show such a grave indifference to our defense budget？

Translated by Peter Wolfe