Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Economic Democracy Union/Facebook
THOUSANDS DEMONSTRATED on Sunday against the KMT’s cuts to defense spending, which reduced spending from 1.25 trillion NT to 780 billion NT. The main organizer of the demonstration was the Economic Democracy Union, the politically progressive social movement organization that played a key role in the 2014 Sunflower Movement and 2024 Bluebird Movement. Organizers claimed that 8,000 attended.
The protest began at the SOGO outside of the Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT and progressed eastward through the city. The march finished outside the Bank of China building in Xinyi.
Participants at the demonstration. Taiwanese activist Lee Ming-che, who was imprisoned by China for five years, is on the right. Photo credit: Economic Democracy Union
This parade route is symbolic, as it is usually the parade route followed by annual commemorations of Tibetan Uprising Day. The Bank of China building in Xinyi is often used to represent China, in the absence of any Chinese government building present in Taiwan, as also occurs during protests supportive of Hong Kong.
Indeed, the rally was timed for May 23rd, the anniversary of the 1951 “Seventeen-Point Agreement” that signed away Tibet’s sovereignty to the PRC. Pro-Taiwan civil society has long been critical of claims by the KMT regarding signing a peace agreement with China–potentially with the party routing around democratic institutions–with the view that this would be a form of false peace and could also sign away Taiwan’s political freedoms.
As such, it may not be surprising that the rally was critical of KMT chair Cheng Li-wun’s recent claims to be able to achieve peace with China through dialogue, as observed in a trip to China that involved a summit meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping. During the meeting, Cheng declared both sides of the Taiwan Strait to be Chinese. The meeting was framed as an effort to ensnare Taiwan into the notion of “One China.”
Likewise, the rally criticized the KMT’s cuts to defense spending, with a framing that peace would be established through defense. In particular, what was cut from the budget included funding for drones, whether aerial or unmanned surface vessels, missiles and similar munitions, AI defense capabilities, as well as the “T-Dome” missile defense system.
Online meme about drones that has begun to circulate in past days
Ironically, though the KMT has often criticized the US as an increasingly unreliable partner for Taiwan that seeks to foist useless arms onto Taiwan in order to profit, the KMT budget cuts mostly left US arms purchases intact. By contrast, what was cut was domestic capabilities.
It has become increasingly common to criticize the KMT’s claims regarding defense. For example, the KMT has often cut defense with the claim that it hopes to avoid children being sent to the battlefield, drones have been depicted as an unmanned form of defense that would prevent losses. Likewise, if the KMT has decided to cut funding for the T-Dome because it would be an accomplishment of the Lai administration, the T-Dome is a purely defensive system meant to protect from missile threats, rather than an aggressive form of warfare.
Even so, it does not seem likely that the KMT will budge on the issue anytime soon. Moreover, defense spending has come to be held up by the US, with the Trump administration publicly weighing whether to allow for more arms sales to Taiwan as a negotiating tactic with China.