CHINA WATCHChina-Friendly KMT Stunts Taiwan’s Attempt to Grow into a Fully Formed Hedgehog
The Taiwanese legislature, led by the China-friendly Kuomintang (KMT), passed a pared-down version of the special military budget championed by President Lai Ching-te. But in shrinking the special budget to just $25 billion from the proposed $40 billion, the KMT eliminated all the most important spending. This was the spending that would help Taiwan grow into an ‘indigestible hedgehog’ – that is, prey too prickly for a larger predator to easily consume.
Perhaps the strongest sign that Taiwan was on the verge of a strategic breakthrough came in early May, when the Taiwanese legislature, led by the China-friendly Kuomintang (KMT), passed a pared-down version of the special military budget championed by President Lai Ching-te.
After all, detente with China, or soft surrender if you’re being less generous, is a central plank in the KMT’s platform. Its passing a special military budget seems remarkable at first glance.
But in shrinking the special budget to just $25 billion from the proposed $40 billion, the KMT under chair Cheng Li-wun eliminated all the most important spending. This was the spending that would help Taiwan grow into an ‘indigestible hedgehog’ – that is, prey too prickly for a larger predator to easily consume.
What got cut out of the special military budget: all domestic programs, including orders for 200,000 small drones. What stayed in: big-ticket purchases of American-made munitions, including Patriot air-defense missiles.
Adding insult to injury, President Donald Trump froze US arms sales to Taiwan around the same time the special military budget passed in Taipei. Calling arms sales to Taiwan ‘a very good negotiating chip’ in talks with President Xi Jinping, Trump paused announced deals for missiles and other weaponry worth $14 billion. Those purchases are among those funded by the approved special military budget.
If Trump continues to withhold his signature on US-Taiwanese arms deals, the $25 billion worth of (mostly) American arms in the special military budget would disappear alongside the Taiwanese arms Lai’s administration had proposed. In that dire scenario, the special budget could go unspent. All that drama for nothing.
What stings the most for friends of a free Taiwan isn’t the possibly temporary disruption to Taiwan’s acquisition of big, expensive American weapons – not just Patriot interceptors but also Javelin anti-tank missiles and rockets for Himars launcher trucks. Those are all useful systems, to be sure.
But what’s even more useful are drones, especially small drones that Taiwan could produce quickly and cheaply without the help of distant and sometimes unreliable allies. Drones are central to Ukraine’s ongoing defense against Russian aggression, and they would surely be central to an effective Taiwanese defense against Chinese aggression.
