Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Taiwan’s cooperation with Poland highlights how drones, like semiconductors, are becoming strategic assets. Taiwan has a “central and eastern Europe supply chain resilience plan,” and is cooperating with Poland on drone production, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) published on Sunday.

Taiwan and Poland last week signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on developing a “non-China” supply chain for drones and to work together on key technologies. The agreement comes as Russia’s war against Ukraine, as well as China’s growing assertiveness, underscores the strategic importance of secure and trusted defense supply chains.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators have twice blocked President William Lai’s (賴清德) special defense budget bill in the Procedure Committee, preventing it from entering discussion or review. Meanwhile, KMT Legislator Chen Yu-jen (陳玉珍) proposed amendments that would enable lawmakers to use budgets for their assistants at their own discretion — with no requirement for receipts, staff registers, upper or lower headcount limits, or usage restrictions — prompting protest from legislative assistants.

After the new legislature convened in February, the KMT joined forces with the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and, leveraging their slim majority, introduced bills that undermine the Constitution, disrupt constitutional order and encroach upon executive authority. These include the “contempt of legislature” charge and amendments to the Constitutional Court Procedure Act (憲法訴訟法), which effectively paralyzed the operations of the Constitutional Court and the justices’ powers.