Wed, Jul 22, 2026 page2

• KMT submits motion to suspend drone funding

  • By Lin Che-yuan and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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  The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday submitted a motion to suspend the Cabinet’s NT$44.2 billion (US$1.37 billion) drone industry plan, calling the program “bloat” and questioning its legality.

  The comprehensive uncrewed vehicle industry development plan seeks to support the growth of a self-sufficient domestic drone industry for national defense through 2030.

  The KMT caucus introduced the motion to suspend the plan as part of interparty negotiations over this year’s budget, which remains stalled in the legislature.

  

  President William Lai, second from left, looks at a drone at an event held by the Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance in Taichung on June 9.

  Photo: Liao Yao-tung, Taipei Times

  Local Chinese-language media reported that the KMT caucus wrote in the motion that the Executive Yuan’s belated approval of the plan in October last year significantly postdated the funding items it nominally governed.

  The timing of the Cabinet’s approval did not align with the normal budgetary process and likely contravened the law, the party caucus said.

  The Cabinet’s handling of the drone industry plan was emblematic of the period when the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) controlled the legislature, which it treated as a “rubber stamp,” the KMT caucus said.

  That legislature passed, with minimal deliberation, budgets for railroad construction and for the procurement of the Phalanx close-in weapon system and M1A2T main battle tanks, resulting in major flaws that had to be revised later, it said.

  The DPP administration deprived the legislature of its prerogative to examine policies for viability and compatibility with the public interest, to the detriment of fiscal discipline, the KMT caucus said.

  The KMT has proposed an alternative drone industry plan that it said would prevent the government from playing favorites and combat corruption by placing greater emphasis on institutional mechanisms for awarding contracts, it said.

  DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said the KMT’s proposal to write the government’s budget for the executive branch breached Article 70 of the Constitution, under which the legislature cannot propose increased spending in budget bills submitted by the Executive Yuan.

  The then-Council of Grand Justices confirmed that interpretation during a period when the KMT controlled the Executive Yuan, he said.

  The legislature would be within its rights to amend or delete parts of the plan, but it cannot seize total power by overriding the prerogatives of other branches of government, he said.

  “Taiwan will not need presidents, county commissioners or city mayors if the KMT is allowed to give the legislature supreme power in blatant violation of the constitutional order,” Wang said.

  The cultivation of an indigenous drone industry is critical to national security and the economy, but the KMT and its partner, the Taiwan People’s Party, have regrettably obstructed the policy, he said.

  “If the KMT cares about the development of a domestic industry, I urge it to review the budget plan with a mind to abide by the Constitution, relevant laws and objective reality,” he said.

  The KMT’s current course would cost Taiwanese drone makers valuable time in building up the industry and endanger the nation’s security, he added.
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