Taiwan unveiled its largest defense spending increase in more than a decade on Thursday amid rising military tensions with its neighbor China, which considers the self-ruled island its own and has not renounced the use of force against it.
President Tsai Ing-wen's Cabinet signed off on an 8.3 percent increase in military spending for the year starting January to 411.3 billion New Taiwan dollars ($13.11 billion), its largest yearly gain since 2008, according to the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics.
If approved by lawmakers, which is likely given the ruling Democratic Progressive Party's control of parliament, it will be the highest since records started in 2001, data from the statistics agency show.