SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Shortly after Donald Trump's inauguration, Taiwan's opposition-controlled legislature voted to reduce defense spending. Meanwhile, the Chinese threat seems to grow more serious and the question of whether the U.S. would come to Taiwan's assistance gets less clear. Ashish Valentine reports from Taipei.
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UNIDENTIFIED LAWMAKER: (Yelling in non-English language).
ASHISH VALENTINE, BYLINE: Rival lawmakers yelled over each other as the opposition parties pushed spending cuts to nearly immediate votes. In total, they froze or cut over $6 billion from President Lai Ching-te's proposed budget. Many of those reductions hit the military and its purchases of U.S. equipment.
Chen Liang-chih is a researcher at a defense think tank funded by Taiwan's government. He thinks the reductions would make it harder to keep up with the jets and ships China constantly deploys around Taiwan.
CHEN LIANG-CHIH: For Taiwanese Air Force, the jet has to scramble every day. So without that kind of operational expense, you cannot purchase oil, any kind of maintenance equipment.
VALENTINE: Chinese aircraft crossed near Taiwan over 3,000 times last year, according to figures from Taiwan's Defense Ministry. Legislator with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, Chen Kuan-ting, worries that as tensions with China rise, Taiwan needs to be careful about the signals it sends the U.S.
CHEN KUAN-TING: Cutting the defense budget will send a wrong message to our allies, especially to the United States - right? - that Taiwan might not be serious to our defense development.
VALENTINE: Complicating the situation for Taiwan's ruling party, President Trump remains less clear than his predecessor about defending Taiwan. Here's what he told NBC News weeks before his inauguration.
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KRISTEN WELKER: If China invades Taiwan on your watch, are you committed to defending Taiwan?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I never say. I never say.
WELKER: Still won't say?
TRUMP: I never say because I have to negotiate things, right?
VALENTINE: Alexander Huang is director of International Affairs for the opposition KMT, which helped pass these reductions. He says the opposition might release some of the funds if the ruling party can prove it's unnecessary.
ALEXANDER HUANG: We supported stronger defense but quietly. We do not use our military collaboration with the United States to poke Beijing's eyes.
VALENTINE: With uncertainty from the U.S. on one side and escalating threats from China on the other, Taiwan finds itself threading the needle yet again in an ever-riskier geopolitical climate.
For NPR News, I'm Ashish Valentine in Taipei.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUSTAF LJUNGGREN AND EMIL DE WAAL'S "BRUD") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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