Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Huang Kuo-chang/Facebook
THE TPP’S VERSION of the defense procurement bill has sparked controversy, on several fronts.
First, TPP chair Huang Kuo-chang was accused of taking classified materials from the budget out of the meeting room in order to photograph them. This was accused of being for the purposes of allowing the TPP to copy figures in order to create its own version of the bill.
Subsequently, when the TPP’s version of the defense procurement bill was finally released, it was accused by DPP legislators as Puma Shen of being unprofessional and haphazardly written. Shen suggested that the bill was written by someone who had little understanding of military matters and appeared to be directly lifted from Wikipedia. Likewise, Shen criticized the bill as attempting to circumvent the Ministry of National Defense in order that Huang Kuo-chang and other TPP legislators could take control of defense spending and arms purchases for Taiwan.
The TPP has framed itself as interested in shoring up Taiwan’s defenses, but the current defense expenditure as wasteful, in spending taxpayer money on useless arms. As such, the TPP’s version of the defense procurement bill limits arms purchases to 82 HIMARS multiple rocket launcher systems, 60 M109A self-propelled howitzers, 70 Javelin anti-tank missile systems, 24 TOW-2B anti-tank missile systems, as well as missile-firing drones.
The means by which this has been listed out in the defense procurement bill has been criticized by Shen as overly specific in a manner that does not conform to how arms procurement bills are normally written. As such, Taiwan would be limited to buying certain kinds of ammunition that it may not need, in that the only precision artillery it is allowed to buy is M109A artillery shells. This could lead to shortages in terms of actual defense usage.
Likewise, according to Shen, it is unclear whether classified items are included in the bill. Funding for drones is included, but as there are classified and unclassified drone projects, it is unclear where drones dit in this budget. Shen called attention to that 70% of the military spending was still cut in the TPP’s version of the defense procurement bill, including items about joint cooperation between the US and Taiwan, artificial intelligence, and combat sustainability.
After Shen’s criticisms, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) itself weighed in on the matter. The MND contended that the bill lacked provisions for maintenance or storage of the equipment it aimed to purchase, which would result in its deterioration. The TPP has dismissed the MND’s criticisms, suggesting that they are nonsense. But the critique adds to the perception that the TPP’s purchases occurred in the absence of knowledge about the military.
However, perhaps more dangerous is that the TPP’s version of the defense procurement bill contains clauses intended to require the Ministry of National Defense to require approval from the Legislative Yuan over arms purchases. In this sense, the TPP’s version of the defense procurement bill is another move intended to seize authority over fiscal matters from the Executive Yuan, much as preceding moves by the KMT and TPP aimed at drastically cutting the government budget were.
More generally, the KMT and TPP have sought to expand legislative power while reducing the power of other branches of government and making them subordinate to the legislature. As such, besides attempting to seize budgetary powers from the Executive Yuan, one has seen the Legislative Yuan attempt to seize investigative powers from the executive and the judiciary, freeze the Constitutional Court, as well as seize media regulatory powers and security powers.
Some speculation is that such moves were planned by Huang Kuo-chang, even as it is more common to attribute the pan-Blue camp’s attempt to maximize legislative powers in the past two years to KMT legislative caucus leader Fu Kun-chi. Regardless, one notes that the KMT and TPP have otherwise continued to block defense expenditure. The defense procurement bill was voted down for the tenth time by the two pan-Blue parties on January 27th.