DEFENSE/KMT blocking defense budget could harm Taiwan-U.S. relations: scholar

San Francisco, July 29 (CNA) After the failure of Saturday's mass recall of 24 opposition Kuomintang (KMT) legislators, Taiwan-U.S. relations could be "significantly harmed" if the defense budget is blocked, a U.S. scholar said Tuesday.

David Sacks, a researcher from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), said in an article that should the defense budget fail to increase as President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) proposed, Taiwan could be perceived as "not taking its defense seriously," and a more vulnerable Taiwan would "embolden Chinese aggression."

In February, Lai pledged to boost Taiwan's defense budget to over 3 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) -- a policy that came after U.S. President Donald Trump said Taiwan's defense expenditure should account for 10 percent of GDP.

After the recall movement failed, Sacks said Chinese observers may assess that "Taiwanese voters favor a divided government as the best way to preserve the status quo," and Beijing may intensify its coercion towards Taiwan as well as attempts to undermine and isolate Lai.

However, Beijing could choose to stay patient and "wait him out," he said.

Among the challenges Taiwan now faces, Sacks believes Lai needs to prove to the electorate that he can work effectively with the opposition parties, adding that Taiwan's security might depend on the government's ability to cooperate with the opposition KMT.

Referring to the recall vote, Kharis Templeman (祁凱立), a scholar from the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, said it demonstrates Taiwan is not as polarized as it might appear.

He argued that the recall results will not affect Taiwan-U.S. relations, emphasizing that maintaining trust is crucial for both countries' leaders.