Taiwan's Parliament has given its approval this Friday to a budget increase of 8.81 billion new Taiwanese dollars, equivalent to about 240 million euros, for the 2026 fiscal year, funds that will be allocated to the acquisition of US-made weaponry despite strong criticism and warnings from China.
As reported by the "Taipei Times" newspaper, the plan includes the purchase of HIMARS multiple rocket launcher systems, "Javelin" anti-tank missiles, and "TOM 2B" missiles, along with other military equipment.
With these types of items, the Taiwanese Executive intends to phase the financing of arms purchases after legislators narrowly approved the motion last March authorizing the Government to acquire four batches of weaponry for approximately 9 billion euros, thus fulfilling one of the main objectives of the island's president, Lai Ching Te, despite the initial reservations of the opposition Kuomintang, which holds the parliamentary majority.
Finally, deadlines forced the motion to be advanced in its original wording and not the more economical alternatives advocated by both the Kuomintang and the also opposition Taiwan People's Party, as the time to approve the four batches of weaponry was about to run out.
The United States had previously authorized a historic arms sale to Taiwan valued at 11 billion dollars (9.4 billion euros) at the end of 2025, while another package of 14 billion dollars was blocked in the presidential office amid rising tension between China and the island.
Ties between China and Taiwan were broken in 1949, when the forces of the nationalist Kuomintang party were defeated in the civil war by the Communist Party and took refuge in the archipelago. Contacts were only resumed at a business and informal level from the 1980s onwards.