DEFENSE / U.S. arms deals in special budget total NT$900 billion: Deputy minister

Taipei, Jan. 15 (CNA) The amount reserved for arms procurement from the United States in a proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.6 billion) special defense budget is around NT$900 billion, Deputy Defense Minister Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) said Thursday.

"Weapon systems manufactured in Taiwan are estimated to cost NT$300 billion, so the figure is the exact opposite of what some have suggested -- it is almost entirely foreign procurement, except for the NT$300 billion," Hsu said at a weekly Cabinet news conference.

He was responding to a claim by opposition Taiwan People's Party Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) the previous day that while the special budget would be used to fund a historic US$11.1 billion arms sale package to Taiwan, announced by the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency on Dec. 17, "a very high percentage is not meant for arms procurement from the U.S."

Huang, who returned from a whirlwind visit to the U.S. on Wednesday, said he made the discovery after meeting unnamed officials in Washington.

He said he informed the U.S. side that he "would not endorse" a budget "the contents of which are unknown."

In response, Hsu said Thursday that under the Classified National Security Information Protection Act and U.S. security assistance regulations, Taiwan can only make individual arms procurement packages public after the U.S. government has officially announced them.

At present, five packages are already known to the public, while an internal review has been expedited for another four that have yet to be notified to U.S. Congress, he said.

The five packages the Ministry of National Defense has made public are M109A7 self-propelled howitzers, HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems, ALTIUS anti-armor loitering munition systems, Javelin anti-armor missiles, and TOW 2B anti-armor missiles, he said.

He added that the MND will explain classified portions of the spending plan to lawmakers at a classified meeting scheduled for Jan. 19.

The deputy minister also rejected claims that the special budget is tantamount to a "blank cheque," citing past instances in which special budget ceilings were first approved by the Legislature before individual items were considered, though he was likely referring to special budgets proposed between February 2016 and February 2024 when the ruling Democratic Progressive Party held a majority in the Legislature.