A proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.1 billion) special defense budget, spread across eight years, has plunged the Kuomintang(KMT) into an embarrassing internal brawl — one that exposes far more about Taiwan's broken procurement politics than any genuine strategic disagreement.
KMT legislators have taken to calling each other "American lapdogs" and "Chinese Communist lapdogs," the label depending on which budget figure they support: NT$380 billion (US$11.9 billion), favored by the party leadership, or NT$810 billion (US$25.3 billion), championed by a rebel faction. The fight, however, is largely performative. The leadership's NT$380 billion position comes attached with an explicit "plus N" rider — meaning that once Washington issues a second round of arms sale offers, Taiwan would immediately authorize additional funding, bringing the total to roughly NT$800 billion (US$25.0 billion) anyway. The two camps are arguing about a gap that barely exists.
KMT Vice Chairman Chi Lin-lien Ignites the Crisis
The infighting was ignited by Chi Lin-lien (季麟連), a KMT vice chairman and retired general, who used a party central standing committee meeting to publicly attack Legislative Yuan Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) and legislator Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯) — the most prominent KMT voice behind the NT$810 billion figure. Chi even invoked the party's veterans' caucus, the Huang Fu-hsing (黃復興) bloc, calling for Han to be expelled from the party.
The move was wrong on every count.
Han holds his seat as a party-list legislator. Expelling him would cost the KMT the Speakership and hand it directly to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party — a gift no sane opposition should be willing to give. As Speaker, Han's constitutional role is to preside over sessions and broker cross-party negotiations; the final shape of any legislation is not his alone to determine. He has committed no breach of party discipline. Turning the knife on the Speaker simply because the caucus and party headquarters favor different numbers is not discipline. It is incoherence.
Chi's attack was also conspicuously empty. As a retired general, he should, if anything, be better placed than most KMT figures to make a substantive case about procurement. Instead, his broadside contained no data, no strategic rationale, and no policy argument. The result was to transform a budget disagreement into a power struggle — one whose trajectory pointed conveniently toward KMT chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), a figure who has yet to consolidate broad support within the party.
The ironies compound. Chi Lin-lien, who attacked Han with such ferocity, was himself deployed two decades ago by the Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) administration — the DPP's first government — to pressure military figures obstructing defense procurement at the time. He was, in other words, once the instrument of the very dynamics he now condemns.
Han Kuo-yu carries his own contradictions. During the 2019 presidential campaign, he dismissed Taiwan's military as incapable of improving combat effectiveness regardless of spending, comparing it to "a eunuch in a Western suit: all appearance, no substance." Seven years on, the military justice reforms he criticized then remain unfinished. Han has now deployed a mirror version of the same logic: a KMT that blocks the defense budget, he warns, will be slowly strangled — like a prisoner subjected to the ancient torture of incremental suffocation.
The Executive Yuan submitted the draft Special Defense Budget Act to the legislature in late November last year. More than five months have passed. The KMT has not been strangled by the DPP. It may, however, be doing serious damage to itself.
KMT vs. TPP: Who Is Actually Scrutinizing the Defense Budget?
As the largest opposition party, the KMT's handling of this budget — in any of its variants — has not met the standard of genuine legislative scrutiny.
The contrast with the Taiwan People's Party is pointed. The TPP holds only eight legislative seats. Yet it was first to propose a considered alternative framework of NT$400 billion (US$12.5 billion), examined procurement items individually on their merits, and convened a dedicated defense forum to gather expert testimony. The most memorable line came from Chang Ching (張競), a senior researcher at the Chinese Strategic Association (中華戰略學會): "You cannot treat defense procurement like a chef's tasting menu — you don't just accept whatever arrives on the plate."
The KMT has produced no equivalent.
What it has produced is Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) — the party's dominant media figure and "Combat Blue" leader — arguing against the NT$810 billion figure with a question that inadvertently exposed the entire problem: "How do we explain ourselves to the Americans if we don't pass NT$810 billion?" He framed a vote for the larger figure as "the best opportunity for the KMT to shed its anti-American label," and warned that a party seen as both pro-Beijing and anti-American might as well not contest the 2026 or 2028 elections.
Jaw's electoral logic has a certain internal coherence. As a framework for budget review, it is disqualifying. He is not asking whether NT$1.25 trillion in special defense spending is justified, proportionate, or fiscally sound. He is asking whether Washington will be satisfied. That is not legislative oversight. That is ratification.
Taiwan's Endless Concessions: Arms, Trade, and the U.S. Demand That Never Stops
Taiwan's difficulty saying no to Washington extends well beyond defense procurement.
In agricultural trade, Taiwan has opened its inspection regime to American products — germinating potatoes are no longer blocked at the border, American peanuts now enter duty-free. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has committed approximately NT$5.2 trillion (US$162.5 billion) to U.S. investment, and Washington is pressing for a total of NT$15 trillion (US$468.8 billion) in Taiwan-origin investment. These demands exist entirely outside the defense budget debate, yet they define its essential context.
Taiwan has become, in effect, the hen that lays eggs on demand. No matter how many are laid, the appetite on the other side is never satisfied.
What may not yet be fully understood in Washington is that this pattern of relentless and increasingly blunt extraction — applied across trade, investment, and arms sales simultaneously — is quietly eroding something that has endured for nearly a century: Taiwan's genuine public goodwill toward the United States.
Three Budget Problems Taiwan's Legislature Won't Confront
Several structural problems have gone largely unaddressed in the legislature.
The first is the budget mechanism itself. Authorizing a single special appropriation spanning eight years is abnormal fiscal practice in any domain. Former President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) used the same device for her eight-year, NT$880 billion (US$27.5 billion) Forward-Looking Infrastructure Program, which drew widespread criticism as a tool for tying government resources to electoral advantage. Defense spending differs from infrastructure, proponents argue — but not enough to escape the comparison. Even during the Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) eras, when cross-strait hostility was unambiguous and defense consumed seven to ten percent of GDP, the government never resorted to special budget legislation for military spending. President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) has committed Taiwan to eight years of above-normal defense outlays with a wave of his hand.
The second problem is Taiwan's near-total lack of procurement autonomy. Taiwan cannot buy what it wants. It receives what it is allocated, typically at inflated prices, with virtually no option to seek alternative suppliers — France's willingness to sell Mirage jets to Taiwan is long gone. Against this backdrop, the critical question is not NT$380 billion versus NT$810 billion. It is whether whatever arrives in a second U.S. arms offer will actually correspond to Taiwan's genuine defense requirements.
The third problem is accountability — or its structural absence. Outstanding deliveries from arms purchases made during the Tsai administration, still undelivered, are estimated at NT$600 to NT$700 billion (US$18.8 to US$21.9 billion). The United States has delayed some of these for eight years. If weapons purchased nearly a decade ago have yet to arrive, what assurance exists that items authorized under this new budget will be delivered within the next eight? Presidents who sign the legislation will have left office before delivery deadlines arrive. Legislators who authorize the spending face no consequences if the weapons never materialize. That gap is not a procedural footnote. It is the central question of whether this entire exercise constitutes serious defense policy — or theater.
KMT members hurling "lapdog" at one another across the chamber — whether the American or Chinese variety — are demonstrating something more troubling than internal disunity. They have no coherent position, no analytical framework, and no apparent capacity to serve as a credible fiscal watchdog on behalf of the public.
The DPP, watching this spectacle with barely concealed satisfaction, is not off the hook either.
The Lai administration owes Taiwan a clear answer to one question: NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.1 billion) is being committed to defense. What kind of war, exactly, is it preparing to fight?
