Taiwan passes defence budget after record delay, retains drone funding

Taiwan’s opposition-controlled parliament has approved the government’s annual budget, preserving funding for a drone programme central to the island’s defence plans against China.

Lawmakers passed the $93bn budget late on Friday, after a record 266 days of political deadlock and its legal deadline, as President William Lai Ching-te’s administration, which lost its parliamentary majority in 2024, continues to clash with opposition parties over government spending.

The approved funding was earmarked for drone development, despite an earlier threat by the main opposition party, the Kuomintang, to slash that funding by 70 percent.

The Kuomintang dropped the proposed cut after concluding there was no wasteful overlap between the development and procurement programmes it had initially cited as justification.

Other reductions included a 60 percent cut to special allowances for government agency heads, a 2.5 percent cut to military equipment and facilities spending, and a 50 percent cut to media policy and publicity budgets.

Before Friday’s vote, the government had been operating under a provisional budget mechanism to keep paying civil servants and funding welfare programmes.

Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu, following the vote, said the prolonged delay had caused “social division and a constitutional impasse”.

He called on both the ruling and opposition camps to seek greater compromise going forward.

Lai said in a statement that parliamentary oversight and review of the budget are an important constitutional duty.

In May, the same opposition-controlled legislature cut a proposed $40bn special defence budget by 38 percent, stripping out all funding for domestically produced combat drones and leaving only United States arms purchases intact.

Taiwan’s military currently holds fewer than 5,000 drones, while China is reported to have ordered close to a million for delivery this year, part of a broader regional buildup that includes Ukraine’s target of seven million drones in 2026.

Beijing claims self-ruled Taiwan as its own territory and has sharply escalated military pressure on the island in recent years.