Taiwan will introduce a supplementary defense budget of 1.25 trillion Taiwanese dollars ($40 billion) as Beijing accelerates military preparations near the island, President Lai Ching-te said at a press briefing Wednesday.
China has continued to increase military drills and so-called "gray-zone harassment" around Taiwan, with the goal of seizing the island by force by 2027, Lai said, according to a CNBC translation of his remarks in Mandarin. The speech comes in the aftermath of a diplomatic dispute between China and Japan over Taiwan.
Lai added that Beijing had intensified its "infiltration and influence campaign," using a range of tools to interfere in Taiwan's politics and society as it seeks to sway public opinion and undermine the island's democracy.
He also cautioned "unprecedented military buildup" by Beijing and "intensifying provocations in the Taiwan Strait, in the East and South China Seas, and across the Indo-Pacific."
Beijing considers democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and Chinese President Xi Jinping regards its reunification with the mainland "a historical inevitability." Taiwan rejects those claims.
