The government of the Republic of China currently led by Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party has been doing what it can to shore up the island’s defenses against the threat of the People’s Republic of China. A recently announced project pertains to air defense (BBC, October 10, 2025).
Taiwan will build a dome-like air defence system to guard against “hostile threats”, President William Lai announced a day after his government warned that China is enhancing its ability to attack the island….
Lai also said there was a “clear necessity” to boost spending – a likely reference to increasing Chinese incursions into Taiwanese waters and airspace, including military drills that simulate an invasion….
Unnamed sources who spoke to Reuters news agency compared the newly announced so-called Taiwan or “T Dome” to Israel’s Iron Dome network, which can intercept a range of short-range weapons and operate in all types of weather.
The capabilities of the Iron Dome have been especially evident since Israel’s war with Hamas started in October 2023. The shield has intercepted thousands of rockets fired by Hamas and other militant groups, such as Hezbollah, over the last two years.
Equipped with “multi-layered defence, high-level detection and effective interception”, Taiwan’s T Dome will “weave a safety net” to protect citizens, Lai said.
Another goal of Lai’s government is to increase defense expenditures until they add up to at least 5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. Lai thinks that this can happen by 2030.
How successful the government will be in achieving such objectives despite the hostile majority coalition in the Legislative Yaun, which easily survived a massive recall campaign launched this by supporters of the government’s defense agenda, is an open question. The BBC notes that opposition lawmakers have blocked several administration-favored spending bills this year.
Fear of invasion
Some of Lai’s opponents cry that he’s using “fear of a Chinese invasion” to increase his political support, implying that he’s insincere in contending that the country’s defenses need to be bolstered. The two motives do not exclude each other. It is possible to care about both politics and survival; while, also, regarding the proposed nostrum of “more diplomacy” as a dead end. The PRC is uninterested in talking to Lai because he is too clearsighted and too unwilling to appease.
Members of the opposition who say they doubt Lai’s sincerity should ask themselves why the goal of defending the ROC more effectively is so popular. Are all Taiwanese who are conscious of the mainland’s constant flexing of muscle in the Taiwan Strait, the spying, the cyberattacks, the disinformation campaigns, also supposedly inspired only by the prospect of domestic political gain? The desire to remain alive and free is not really so very obscure and unintelligible a motive.
