Taiwan’s government will propose record defence spending for 2027, President Lai Ching-te said on Monday, as the island democracy faces growing military pressure from China.

Taipei’s announcement comes as governments around the world boost defence spending in the face of intensifying conflicts, and growing concern about US commitment to the Asia-Pacific region. Beijing has been claiming Taiwan is part of its territory, and has threatened to use force to annex the island of 23 million people.

“Next year’s total defence budget — including both the annual budget and the special budget — will exceed NT$1 trillion for the first time, reaching NT$1.1225 trillion ($35.2 billion),” Lai said in a statement issued by the Presidential Office.

Taiwan has been boosting defence spending for years and acquiring smaller and more nimble weaponry, including drones, to enable its military to wage asymmetric warfare against China. Under intense US pressure to cough up more on security, Lai’s government has vowed to increase defence spending to five percent of GDP by 2030.

But Lai’s government has been at loggerheads with Taiwan’s opposition parties, which have a majority in parliament, over how much to spend on boosting the island’s defence capabilities.

Donald Trump’s envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner has wrapped up two days of meetings with Israeli and Hamas leaders to break a stalemate over the US president’s Gaza plan, but there have been no signs of an imminent breakthrough as both sides dig in.

The US president last month announced that Hamas had agreed to lay down its arms in phases, under a 15-point road map put forward by his so-called Board of Peace to advance the president’s plan, as Israel’s military withdraws from Gaza.

Kushner met Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel a day after meeting Hamas’s political leader in Egypt in a bid to revive the plan, which has stalled as Israel has carried out air strikes and seized more territory in Gaza despite an October ceasefire, while Hamas has refused to give up its weapons.

An Israeli official indicated that there was no breakthrough in the meeting, saying Netanyahu had made it clear the military would not withdraw from a demarcation line set out in an October ceasefire and would continue to carry out operations in Gaza as it saw necessary, including targeting those who took part in the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered the war. They remarked that Netanyahu and Kushner agreed in the meeting that the reconstruction of Gaza would not begin until Hamas was fully disarmed, including of light weapons.

China held a high-level commemoration ceremony on Monday (August 17, 2026) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and President Jiang Zemin.

Current President Xi Jinping attended and delivered a speech, highly praising Jiang Zemin’s historical contributions and strategic thinking, and commending his efforts in promoting the “1992 Consensus” and driving market-oriented economic reforms. Notably, several retired CCP elders attended the event, but former General Secretary Hu Jintao was absent.

In his speech, Xi Jinping specifically mentioned the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre (officially referred to as the “serious political turmoil of the spring and summer of 1989”), publicly praising Jiang Zemin, then serving as the Shanghai Party Secretary, for “resolutely upholding and implementing the correct decisions of the Party Central Committee” at that critical historical moment, effectively maintaining stability in Shanghai and the country. After the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Jiang Zemin succeeded as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and subsequently presided over large-scale market-oriented economic reforms in China, and was regarded by the outside world as a relatively pragmatic leader.

The commemorative meeting coincided with the passing of former Premier Zhu Rongji, a key figure in the economic reforms of the 1990s. In his remarks, Xi Jinping also emphasized that the entire Party must learn from Jiang Zemin’s noble character, maintain a tenacious “fighting spirit” in the current complex international situation, and resolutely safeguard national security and development interests.