{"id":46226,"date":"2026-08-15T07:52:43","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T02:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=46226"},"modified":"2026-08-15T07:52:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T02:52:43","slug":"taiwan-passes-annual-budget-after-long-delay-including-drone-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=46226","title":{"rendered":"Taiwan passes annual budget after long delay, including drone spending"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\" data-body-type=\"bodyblocks\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">TAIPEI, Aug 15 (Reuters) &#8211; Taiwan&#8217;s opposition-controlled parliament approved this year&#8217;s government budget late on Friday after a record delay, including spending on a key drone \u200cprogramme to bolster the island&#8217;s defences, as the president called for a return \u200cto reason.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">While President Lai Ching-te won the election in 2024, his Democratic Progressive Party lost control of parliament, \u200band the two main opposition parties have used their majority to push their own legislation and stymie government plans, including the budget citing the need to stop wasteful spending.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Legally the budget should have been reviewed and approved by lawmakers by the end of last year, after \u200cbeing put forward by the \u2060cabinet last August, but repeated clashes between the opposition and ruling parties delayed its passage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Lawmakers voted to cut the originally proposed spending of \u2060T$3.034 trillion ($94.79 billion) by T$48 billion, but $63.4 billion earmarked for drones passed without cuts, funding systems the government wants to modernise in the military to better deter China, which views Taiwan \u200bas its \u200bown territory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Lai said in a statement that parliamentary \u200boversight of the government and review \u200cof the budget are an important duty granted by the constitution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;But budget review should return to principles of professionalism, reasonableness, and proportionality, and should not let political divisions affect the normal functioning of the state,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Taiwan&#8217;s cabinet will formally propose next year&#8217;s budget on Thursday, which will include a 16% annual rise in defence spending.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Fu Kun-chi, caucus whip \u200cfor the largest opposition party, the Kuomintang, wrote \u200bon his Facebook page that the opposition parties showed &#8220;great \u200bgoodwill&#8221; in approving 98.4% of the \u200bgeneral budget &#8220;all in order to let the country function normally&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">But the \u200cgovernment must respect legislation the opposition has \u200bpassed in parliament, he \u200badded, referring to disputes about laws the government has refused to enact.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In one of the most high-profile cases, in December Taiwan&#8217;s premier said he would not enact \u200blocal government spending plans \u200cpassed by the opposition, saying they were fiscally unsound and that lawmakers were \u200bwelcome to try to remove him in a no-confidence vote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">($1 = 32.0070 Taiwan dollars)<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(Reporting \u200bby Ben Blanchard; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TAIPEI, Aug 15 (Reuters) &#8211; Taiwan&#8217;s opposition-controlled parliament approved this year&#8217;s government budget late on Friday after a record delay, including spending on a key drone \u200cprogramme to bolster the island&#8217;s defences, as the president called for a return \u200cto reason. While President Lai Ching-te won the election in 2024, his Democratic Progressive Party lost&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/300cbe46d723c9dc4e36fbe2d39b1d2f000b580c81bf0c9850974829a6d9af0a\/lightyear_networkapi\/resizefill_w800_h533%3Bquality_80%3Bformat_jpg\/https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.zenfs.com%2Fen%2Freuters.com%2F97b5db52ae327f6c3e94bfd8045fac2d.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-trending-viral-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}