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Taiwan's Defence Minister Wellington Koo issued a stern warning on Friday, reaffirming that China's relentless military expansion continues to pose a serious and pressing threat to the island nation. His remarks came shortly after the U.S. intelligence community released a report suggesting that Beijing does not currently plan a full-scale invasion of Taiwan in 2027 and may prefer to assert control through non-military means.
Despite this assessment, Koo stressed that China has not abandoned the option of using force and has shown no signs of scaling back its defence spending. He emphasized that Taiwan must continuously strengthen its own military capabilities to ensure that any potential attack would be perceived by Beijing as an extremely high-risk endeavor. According to Koo, improved deterrence is the most effective strategy for discouraging Chinese aggression and pushing back any timeline for a possible military move.
China, which claims Taiwan as part of its sovereign territory, has intensified pressure on the democratic island through repeated military drills near its borders. Taiwan's government, led by President Lai Ching-te, firmly rejects these territorial claims. President Lai has proposed a significant $40 billion boost to defence funding, though the initiative faces pushback in parliament, where opposition lawmakers have criticized the proposal for lacking specificity.
On the naval front, Taiwan is making notable progress. President Lai recently inspected the country's newly developed domestic submarine, currently undergoing sea trials, alongside one of its two operational Dutch-built submarines from the 1980s. Minister Koo confirmed that one of those submarines has already completed a major upgrade, with the second expected to finish by year's end, considerably enhancing Taiwan's underwater combat readiness.
China's foreign ministry dismissed U.S. concerns, urging Washington to stop amplifying what it called the "China threat" narrative, describing Taiwan as strictly an internal matter.
