00:00Taiwan's cabinet has approved a general budget of close to 100 billion US dollars for next year.
00:07That's about 3.5 billion more than what was budgeted for this year.
00:12The spending plan is more than what the government expects to bring in in revenue.
00:17There's about a 5.5 billion dollar discrepancy.
00:20Premier Zhou Rongtai says that the government plans to take on debt in order to make up the difference.
00:26Taiwan has been facing calls from the US and other allies to increase its defense spending.
00:39Earlier this year, Taiwan President Lai Qingda vowed to bring it up to over 3 percent of GDP.
00:45And the cabinet seems to have followed through with a defense budget of about 31 billion US dollars.
00:51That's just over 3.3 percent.
00:53But the cabinet achieved this number by consolidating Taiwan's military, veterans' benefits and Coast Guard budgets into the same category, which hasn't been done before.
01:03But it's a method that NATO abides by.
01:06I personally think it's the easiest way to do this.
01:09I personally think it's the easiest way to do this.
01:13Or at the same time, we're going to follow up with the United States.
01:18Because the United States has quite a lot of countries.
01:19It's also using this way to make its defense budget grow.
01:24There are two reasons why defense spending is so vital.
01:27Number one, Taiwan faces threats of invasion from China, and it needs to build up its arsenal to deter Beijing.
01:33Number two is because Taiwan's biggest military partner, the US, wants to see Taiwan take its own defense seriously before making greater defense commitments to Taipei.
01:44This budget proposal still requires legislative approval.
01:48Last year, the cabinet also proposed a general budget of close to 100 billion US dollars.
01:54But when that budget proposal went to the legislature, the legislature decided to cut it by a record 7 percent.
02:01So the numbers we're seeing today are by no means final.
02:04Ryan Wu, Justin Wu, and Leslie Liao for Taiwan Plus.
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