00:01Taiwan's President Lai Qingde met with another U.S. Senate delegation on Wednesday,
00:06this one led by Senator Jin Banks. During the meeting,
00:10he reaffirmed Taiwan's commitment to its own defense and thanked Banks for his support.
00:38The meeting comes as Lai works to beef up the country's defense amid rising threats from
00:43China. He wants to raise Taiwan's annual defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2030 and is pushing
00:51for a record $40 billion U.S. special defense budget on top of that. Banks says the U.S.
00:56is advocating for more defense spending and is pushing Taiwan's leadership to make it happen.
01:02But your legislative yuan has to do its part and pass the special budget. And that's one message
01:09that I want to send to your leadership. When you pass the special budget in the legislature,
01:16that is a signal to China and to the rest of the world that Taiwan is serious about
01:23peace through strength. Taiwan has hosted a series of U.S. officials in recent weeks.
01:30A bipartisan U.S. Senate delegation came earlier, and Taiwan's Defense Minister Wellington Ku met both
01:37with Banks and with the Republican Study Committee, a conservative policy group. Ku said Taiwan's special
01:44defense budget goes beyond arms purchases and focuses on boosting domestic production and
01:50expanding U.S.-Taiwan technology cooperation. He added that Taiwan will need the U.S. to speed up
01:56the arms sales process to meet those goals. In late March, the ruling and opposition parties
02:03failed to reach a consensus over the defense budget bill. Now, Taiwan's legislature will host its first
02:09cross-party negotiation over the special defense budget Thursday afternoon, with U.S. officials keen to see
02:16a deal reached. Justin Wu and Alan Lu for Taiwan Plus.
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