The U.S. has not yet approved Taiwan’s purchase of additional Stinger missiles, and Taiwan’s military is scrambling to prepare the budget, sparking controversy

According to Taiwan media reports, the local government is preparing to review its 2025 defense budget, which includes a significant increase in the procurement of Stinger shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. The quantity is set to rise from 500 to 2,530 units, with the total expenditure jumping from NT$13.375 billion to NT$69.016 billion. This approach to budgeting deviates from the traditional practice of initially preparing classified budgets during the operational stage and only making them public once the deals were finalized. In this case, the budget was announced before receiving approval from the United States, which has sparked controversy.

Historically, during Chen Shui-bian’s presidency, a budget of NT$158 billion was allocated for the “Phoenix Eye” project to purchase 66 F-16C/D fighter jets. However, the Bush administration ultimately had no intention of selling them, leaving the budget unspent. Learning from this experience, the Taiwanese military has, in recent years, typically kept negotiations and budget preparations under wraps, only making the budget public after the U.S. officially announces an arms sale approval.

Zheng Zhong, a researcher at the Taiwan Institute for Strategic Studies, expressed that during the legislative review of the 2017 budget, it was agreed that the defense department would allocate over NT$13.3 billion for the procurement of 500 missiles over a nine-year period from 2017 to 2025. However, the defense department recently amended an internal document titled “Overall Acquisition Planning,” allowing for a fivefold expansion of the original plan without the legislature’s approval. This raises concerns about a lack of respect for the legislative authority, as the defense department appears to be trying to bypass established processes.

The United Daily News commented on the matter, suggesting that military officials might find initiating a new procurement complicated, opting instead to revise the existing plan. However, they questioned whether a scale and budget increase of over five times aligns with the original authorization from the legislative body. They pointed out that if the Democratic Progressive Party were in opposition, they would likely not accept such changes without scrutiny. Administrative bodies should not overlook fundamental rules for the sake of convenience.

In a political commentary program, veteran journalist Chen Feng-hsin remarked that the proposal to buy 500 Stinger missiles, which was already delayed multiple times since 2017, has now escalated to a plan for 2,000 additional units. She raised the question of what kind of understanding exists with military suppliers that would lead to such a swift execution of funds.