Mainland China’s sorties around Taiwan force island to push military fuel budget up 55 per cent to US$344 million
- Taipei’s defence ministry announces 55 per cent budget increase in fuel cost to meet challenges from Beijing’s military operations around island
- Island monitors PLA activity through intelligence channels and will not let down its guard while Taiwanese vice-president is in US: defence spokesman
The amount spent on fuel by the Taiwanese air force and navy for shadowing, patrols and other missions will go up to roughly NT$11 billion (US$344 million) for the 2024 financial year from NT$7.1 billion this year, according to the island’s defence ministry on Tuesday.
“As we expect the enemy will increase its military threats against us, we have initially asked for a [fuel] budget of NT$11 billion to deal with the severe situation,” said Rear Admiral Chen Chun-chung, head of the ministry’s material readiness department, in a news conference.
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In 2022, fuel spending for the military stood at NT$5.9 billion, a big increase from about NT$4 billion the year before.
Chen’s comment came after local news reports said the defence ministry had used all its NT$7.1 billion fuel budget for this year and owed government-owned petroleum and gas company CPC corporation NT$4 billion after running out of funds.
Chen admitted that there was a need to raise spending but denied that the ministry owed the oil company NT$4 billion.
“So far we have paid the bill according to the contract and we do not owe [the corporation] any money,” he said.
Tsai Shih-ying, a legislator of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, said according to his information from the ministry, the military had already spent all its budget this month and was using emergency funding to pay the fuel bill.
“If the Chinese mainland government had not intensified its harassing actions around Taiwan, there would be no need for our military to prepare for such a large budget to deal with the challenge,” he said.
Tsai, who sits on the legislature’s foreign relations and defence committee, said the ministry was expected to send the budget proposal to the cabinet at the end of this month to review and approve.
Earlier this month, Taiwanese vice-premier Cheng Wen-tsan said the island’s military had proposed NT$440 billion in overall spending for the 2024 financial year, up NT$30 billion from this financial year.
Tsai said the PLA operations around Taiwan had not only stoked tension in the Taiwan Strait but also created instability in the region.
Since last August, the PLA has not only sent warplanes to Taiwan’s southwest air defence identification zone on an almost daily basis but some of its sorties have crossed the median line separating the island and the mainland in the Taiwan Strait and even approached the less militarily fortified region in the east.
Its warplane sorties have been reported by the island’s military as being accompanied on many occasions by at least four PLA warships on missions around the island.
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Beijing, which views Taiwan as its territory that must be brought back to its control, by force if necessary, regarded those contacts as a breach of the US one-China policy and a serious violation of its sovereignty.
The United States, like most other countries, does not recognise Taiwan as an independent state but it is opposed to any unilateral change to the cross-strait status quo by force.
“So far, we have yet to see any relatively larger scale military drills” from the PLA in response to Taiwanese vice-president and presidential hopeful William Lai Ching-te’s US transit, Sun said, adding that the island’s military would continue to monitor the situation through various intelligence channels and would not let down its guard.
