President Lai Ching-te wants Taiwan to strengthen its indigenous defense capabilities by increasing defense spending, expanding domestic drone production, and embracing a burden-sharing strategy. Photo courtesy of the Military News Agency
The G7 leaders, meeting in Évian, France, on June 17, issued a joint statement regarding the status of Taiwan, declaring: “We reaffirm our opposition to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo, in particular by force or coercion, in the East and South China Seas and across the Taiwan Strait, which should only be resolved peacefully through dialogue.”
The statement did not name China directly, but marked the sixth consecutive year since 2021 that a G7 summit has addressed Taiwan Strait security. Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te welcomed the statement on X, saying Taiwan would “keep working with our partners to uphold regional peace and prosperity.”
In a June 25 address to the Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee, a presidential body coordinating Taiwan’s civil-military crisis preparedness, Lai invoked that G7 statement, saying Taiwan would answer it “by upholding the principles of collective defense and burden-sharing.”
The framing echoes pressure from the Trump administration, which has called on U.S. allies broadly, and Taiwan specifically, to spend more on their own militaries. Trump has pressed Taiwan to raise defense spending to as much as 10 percent of GDP, a level above what the U.S. or any major ally spends.
On funding, Taiwan’s opposition-controlled parliament in May approved only two-thirds of the T$1.25 trillion ($38.69 billion) in extra defense spending Lai requested, restricting the approved funds to U.S. arms purchases. The government has since proposed a new T$210 billion package covering surveillance, coastal-attack, and small surface drones through 2031, while the main opposition party, the Kuomintang, has floated its own six-year, T$240 billion drone plan.
Taiwan’s defense budget is set at 3.3 percent of GDP for 2026, with Lai committing to reach 5 percent by 2030. As of June 18, the legislature had not yet passed an annual defense budget for 2026, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Washington has aligned itself with Taiwan’s drone push. Raymond Greene, director of the American Institute in Taiwan and the de facto U.S. ambassador, told a Taichung forum on July 2 that “nothing will deter conflict more effectively than turning Taiwan into a hornet’s nest of air, surface, and subsurface drones.” He added that the United States and Taiwan could anchor “democratic” drone production to strengthen the “collective deterrence posture of the free world.”
Drones also feature prominently in the defense concept outlined by U.S. Indo-Pacific Command chief Admiral Samuel Paparo. He first described the “Hellscape” strategy in June 2024 and reiterated it during an April 2025 congressional hearing, saying: “I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities… so that I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything.”
Under the plan, allied forces would deploy swarms of unmanned aerial, surface, and subsurface drones as soon as Chinese forces began crossing the Taiwan Strait, disrupting an amphibious landing long enough for the United States and its allies to mobilize additional assets.
In Congress, the Blue Skies for Taiwan Act, introduced by a bipartisan group including Sens. John Curtis and Jeff Merkley, would expand U.S.-Taiwan cooperation on drone development while explicitly reducing reliance on Chinese supply chains.
Beijing has dismissed the strategy. A Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson called it evidence of the “malicious intent of anti-China forces in the US to destroy Taiwan island for their own political gain.”
Joint production deals are already moving forward. A day after Lai’s visit to NCSIST, the Taipei Times reported that Taiwan and the United States had agreed to jointly produce NCSIST’s Chien Feng I, or “Mighty Hornet I,” attack drone. The drone is already in service with Taiwan’s Marine Corps and has passed live-fire tests launched from fast-moving surface ships. The agreement still requires a national security review and legislative budget approval.
Separately, Focus Taiwan reported that Taiwan’s Air Force is considering procurement of an upgraded version of NCSIST’s Teng Yun 2 uncrewed combat aerial vehicle. The aircraft completed its required combat-readiness evaluation in 2024 and now uses the same engine as the U.S.-made MQ-9B SkyGuardian. No decision has been made on the procurement timeline, budget, or the number of aircraft.
Taiwan’s existing defense concept, developed by then-Chief of the General Staff Admiral Lee Hsi-min between 2017 and 2019, is built around asymmetry rather than matching China system for system. The Overall Defense Concept calls for large numbers of small, mobile, and affordable anti-air and anti-ship systems designed to survive an initial strike and deny an amphibious landing, rather than attempting to contest sea control or air superiority outright.
According to the Cato Institute, Taiwan has fielded high-quality air and sea defense missiles, missile corvettes, mine-laying ships, and unmanned aircraft under this approach. However, the concept lost institutional momentum after Lee’s departure. In its 2021 review, the Ministry of National Defense described asymmetric capabilities and “fundamental” conventional capabilities as complementary, rather than maintaining an asymmetry-first approach.
A $14 billion U.S. arms package for Taiwan, already approved by Congress, remains delayed, with analysts expecting an announcement only after Xi’s September visit to the United States. That delay has drawn more media attention than the broader record. Since returning to office in January 2025, the Trump administration has notified Congress of $11.435 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, exceeding the $8.377 billion notified during the Biden administration’s entire four years, according to U.S.-Taiwan Business Council data. The State Department has reiterated that arms sales to Taiwan are not contingent on Beijing’s consent.
Congress has also moved separately from the White House on this front. In July, lawmakers approved a $500 million Foreign Military Financing measure for Taiwan. Huang Chung-ting, an associate research fellow with Taipei’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the move signaled that Congress had not reduced its security support for Taiwan following the Trump-Xi meeting and wanted to avoid long-term constraints on military aid.
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