Taiwan Will Hardly Adhere to McCain’s Advice

Taiwan's current financial situation would make it difficult to reach the target, recently set by Senator McCain, of allocating 3 percent of its gross national product (GDP) to its national defense.

“Taiwan's current financial situation would make it difficult to reach the government's target of allocating 3 percent of the gross national product (GDP) to national defense,” the local media quotes Premier Lin Chuan as saying.

According to a government website on national statistics, its GDP in 2016 will reach 16.9 billion New Taiwan Dollars (TWD) ($522 mln).

If it allocates 3% of its GDP to the defense needs, it will be 509 million TWD ($15.7 mln) against 400 million TWD ($12.4 mln) currently planned by the government.

McCain’s surprise call for the country to spend 3% of its GDP on its national defense came during his visit to the island last week while he met with the country’s President Tsai Ing-wen.

He then advised the country to invest in submarines, torpedoes and ground-to-air missiles to beef up national security.

Ministry of National Defense spokesman Major General David Lo earlier said that although the funds allocated to national defense from the government’s annual budget represented less than 3 percent of Taiwan’s GDP, the nation’s defense budget has trended upward over the past three years.

His comments came in response to an annual report recently released by the US Department of Defense on China’s military and security developments, which stated that Taiwan’s defense spending has dropped to 2 percent of GDP, while China’s military spending has risen to 14 times that of Taiwan.