Under growing military pressure from China, Taiwan plans to increase its defense spending by 13.9 percent next year.
According to the budget draft presented by the government in Taipei on Thursday, the military budget is to rise to 586 billion Taiwan dollars, the equivalent of 19 billion euros.
This corresponds to 2.4 percent of the economic output of the democratic island republic.
The Taiwanese Ministry of Defense justified the increase with the significant expansion of the Chinese People's Liberation Army's military activities with aircraft and ships near Taiwan.
Tensions between China and Taiwan reached a high point this month when US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan.
Large-scale maneuvers
Pelosi's visit was the most senior from Washington to Taipei in a quarter-century.
In response, China launched large-scale maneuvers around Taiwan, firing ballistic missiles, one of which flew directly over the island not far from the capital.
It was Beijing's largest show of military power since the Taiwan "missile crisis" in the mid-1990s.
The communist leadership rejects official contacts from other countries to Taipei because it regards the island as part of the People's Republic.
On the other hand, Taiwan, which has a population of 23 million, sees itself as independent and has been governed independently since before the founding of the People's Republic in 1949.
Since the major maneuvers, Chinese planes and ships have continued to operate more intensively in the 130-kilometer-wide straits of the Taiwan Strait and repeatedly cross the center line, which had previously been the most respected.
Since last year, Chinese military machines have been penetrating Taiwan's air surveillance zone (ADIZ) to test air defenses and increase pressure.