TAIPEI: Taiwan will introduce a $40-billion supplementary defense budget to underscore its determination to defend itself in the face of a rising threat from China, President Lai Ching-te said on Wednesday.
China, which views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory, has ramped up military and political pressure over the past five years to assert its claims, which Taipei strongly rejects.
As Taiwan faces calls from Washington to spend more on its own defense, mirroring US pressure on Europe, Lai said in August he hoped for a boost in defense spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product by 2030.
Unveiling the T$1.25 trillion ($39.89 billion) package, Lai said history had proven that trying to compromise in the face of aggression brought nothing but “enslavement.”
“There is no room for compromise on national security,” he said at a press conference in the presidential office.
“National sovereignty and the core values of freedom and democracy are the very foundation of our nation.”
Lai, who first announced the new spending plan in an op-ed comment in the Washington Post newspaper on Tuesday, said Taiwan was showing its determination to defend itself.
“It is a struggle between defending democratic Taiwan and refusing to submit to becoming ‘China’s Taiwan’,” he added, rather than merely an ideological struggle or a dispute over “unification versus independence.”
Lai had previously flagged extra defense spending, but had not given details.
For 2026, the government plans such spending will reach T$949.5 billion ($30.3 billion), to stand at 3.32 percent of GDP, crossing a 3 percent threshold for the first time since 2009, government figures showed.
Speaking earlier in Beijing, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said Taiwan was allowing “external forces” to dictate its decisions.
“They squander funds that could be used to improve people’s livelihoods and develop the economy on purchasing weapons and currying favor with external powers,” the spokesperson, Peng Qingen, told reporters.
“This will only plunge Taiwan into disaster.”
The United States is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, despite a lack of formal diplomatic ties.
But since President Donald Trump took office in January, it has approved only one new arms sale to Taiwan, a $330-million package for fighter jet and other aircraft parts announced this month.
“The international community is safer today because of the Trump administration’s pursuit of peace through strength,” Lai wrote in the Washington Post.
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Taiwan plans extra $40 billion in defense spending to counter China
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Taiwan plans extra $40 billion in defense spending to counter China
- China has stepped up military pressure on Taiwan
- United States urged greater defense spending by Taiwan
Indonesia floods were ‘extinction level’ for rare orangutans
BANGKOK: Indonesia’s deadly flooding was an “extinction-level disturbance” for the world’s rarest great ape, the tapanuli orangutan, causing catastrophic damage to its habitat and survival prospects, scientists warned on Friday.
Only scientifically classified as a species in 2017, tapanulis are incredibly rare, with fewer than 800 left in the wild, confined to a small range in part of Indonesia’s Sumatra.
One dead suspected tapanuli orangutan has already been found in the region, conservationists told AFP.
“The loss of even a single orangutan is a devastating blow to the survival of the species,” said Panut Hadisiswoyo, founder and chairman of the Orangutan Information Center in Indonesia.
And analysis of satellite imagery combined with knowledge of the tapanuli’s range suggests that the flooding which killed nearly 1,000 people last month may also have devastated wildlife in the Batang Toru region.
The scientists focused on the so-called West Block, the most densely populated of three known tapanuli habitats, and home to an estimated 581 tapanulis before the disaster.
There, “we think that between six and 11 percent of orangutans were likely killed,” said Erik Meijaard, a longtime orangutan conservationist.
“Any kind of adult mortality that exceeds one percent, you’re driving the species to extinction, irrespective of how big the population is at the start,” he told AFP.
But tapanulis have such a small population and range to begin with that they are especially vulnerable, he added.
Satellite imagery shows massive gashes in the mountainous landscape, some of which extend for more than a kilometer and are nearly 100 meters wide, Meijaard said.
The tide of mud, trees and water toppling down hillsides would have carried away everything in its path, including other wildlife like elephants.
David Gaveau, a remote sensing expert and founder of conservation start-up The Tree Map, said he was flabbergasted by the before-and-after comparison of the region.
“I have never seen anything like this before during my 20 years of monitoring deforestation in Indonesia with satellites,” he told AFP.
The devastation means remaining tapanulis will be even more vulnerable, with sources of food and shelter now washed away.
Over nine percent of the West Block habitat may have been destroyed, the group of scientists estimated.
In a draft paper shared with AFP and set to be published as a pre-print in coming days, they warned the flooding represents an “extinction-level disturbance” for tapanulis.
They are urging an immediate halt to development in the region that will damage remaining habitat, expanded protected areas, a detailed survey of the affected area and orangutan populations and work to restore lowland forests.
The highland homes currently inhabited by tapanulis are not their preferred habitat, but it is where remaining orangutans have been pushed by development elsewhere.
Panut said the region had become eerily quiet after the landslides.
“This fragile and sensitive habitat in West Block must be fully protected by halting all habitat-damaging development,” he told AFP.
Only scientifically classified as a species in 2017, tapanulis are incredibly rare, with fewer than 800 left in the wild, confined to a small range in part of Indonesia’s Sumatra.
One dead suspected tapanuli orangutan has already been found in the region, conservationists told AFP.
“The loss of even a single orangutan is a devastating blow to the survival of the species,” said Panut Hadisiswoyo, founder and chairman of the Orangutan Information Center in Indonesia.
And analysis of satellite imagery combined with knowledge of the tapanuli’s range suggests that the flooding which killed nearly 1,000 people last month may also have devastated wildlife in the Batang Toru region.
The scientists focused on the so-called West Block, the most densely populated of three known tapanuli habitats, and home to an estimated 581 tapanulis before the disaster.
There, “we think that between six and 11 percent of orangutans were likely killed,” said Erik Meijaard, a longtime orangutan conservationist.
“Any kind of adult mortality that exceeds one percent, you’re driving the species to extinction, irrespective of how big the population is at the start,” he told AFP.
But tapanulis have such a small population and range to begin with that they are especially vulnerable, he added.
Satellite imagery shows massive gashes in the mountainous landscape, some of which extend for more than a kilometer and are nearly 100 meters wide, Meijaard said.
The tide of mud, trees and water toppling down hillsides would have carried away everything in its path, including other wildlife like elephants.
David Gaveau, a remote sensing expert and founder of conservation start-up The Tree Map, said he was flabbergasted by the before-and-after comparison of the region.
“I have never seen anything like this before during my 20 years of monitoring deforestation in Indonesia with satellites,” he told AFP.
The devastation means remaining tapanulis will be even more vulnerable, with sources of food and shelter now washed away.
Over nine percent of the West Block habitat may have been destroyed, the group of scientists estimated.
In a draft paper shared with AFP and set to be published as a pre-print in coming days, they warned the flooding represents an “extinction-level disturbance” for tapanulis.
They are urging an immediate halt to development in the region that will damage remaining habitat, expanded protected areas, a detailed survey of the affected area and orangutan populations and work to restore lowland forests.
The highland homes currently inhabited by tapanulis are not their preferred habitat, but it is where remaining orangutans have been pushed by development elsewhere.
Panut said the region had become eerily quiet after the landslides.
“This fragile and sensitive habitat in West Block must be fully protected by halting all habitat-damaging development,” he told AFP.
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