Unofficial working translation, prepared from the Mandarin text for internal reference only. The Vice President appears to have delivered these remarks in English, and an authoritative English text exists. For any public or official use, please replace this draft with the official English version from the Office of the President, or INDSR's own records as organizer. Wording below will not match the Vice President's actual delivered words.

I welcome all the distinguished guests who have come to Taiwan from around the world, and I thank you for bringing your expertise to this Dialogue.

This year's Dialogue is themed "Forging Global Consensus: A Blueprint for Common Security in the Indo-Pacific Region." Its purpose is to call on us to bring together our shared concern for peace and the capabilities needed to defend it.

Taiwan bears a clear responsibility in this effort. We must strengthen our self-defense capabilities and raise the readiness of society as a whole, so that we can meet a wide range of security challenges.

President Lai's Four Pillars of Peace Action Plan provides the overall framework for this national security work. It encompasses strengthening our national defense, building economic resilience, deepening cooperation with democratic partners, and maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait through steady and principled cross-strait leadership.

The four themes of this Dialogue set a practical agenda for our discussions. What lessons should we draw from the situations in Ukraine and the Middle East? How do we safeguard the sea lanes on which so many economies depend? How do we use emerging technologies to strengthen our defense capabilities? And how do we keep public services running and public confidence intact while under sustained pressure?

Let me begin with the lessons drawn from the situations in Ukraine and the Middle East.

I am grateful to the many visitors who have come to Taiwan and shared their observations and experience with us, on matters such as decentralized command, force structure, the training and mobilization of reserve forces, and the much-discussed rapid evolution and refinement of unmanned systems and technology, where drones and counter-drone capabilities have already reshaped the battlefield.

For Taiwan, one key lesson leads directly into the third theme of this Dialogue. We must build multilayered defense capabilities and a rapid technological feedback loop, so that we can respond flexibly to different threats at an affordable cost.

The conflict in the Middle East has further underscored our urgent need for cost-effective air defense systems, on land and at sea alike, including counter-drone systems.

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) to military functions such as intelligence analysis, targeting support, interception, and logistics also warrants close study.

We need to understand where AI can improve the speed and quality of decisions, how it can connect information across different systems, and under what conditions erroneous or distorted data would undermine its value.

For Taiwan, this also means building the data architecture needed to use these tools effectively, while keeping ultimate responsibility for decisions in human hands.

The lessons of these technological developments confirm once again our pressing need for well-trained forces, reliable communications networks, and the ability to update and improve quickly, replenish our strength, and sustain operations.

At home, we have carried out major reforms to our conscription system. Since 2024, for men born in or after 2005, the term of mandatory military service has been restored from four months to one year.

This reform gives conscripts enough time to complete basic training and specialized training and to serve in combat units.

At the same time, we have raised the pay and allowances of conscripted personnel, and we must equip them with modern gear suited to the missions they are asked to carry out.

Reform of the reserve system must make our mobilization mechanism truly credible. Taiwan has introduced a 14-day recall training program, so that units can train together at a more advanced level that is closer to real combat.

The recent 2026 Han Kuang exercise covered not only active-force drills and large-scale reserve recall training but also integrated civilian emergency preparedness and urban resilience.

These reforms require sustained and substantial funding. President Lai has pledged to raise the defense budget to 5 percent of GDP by 2030, measured according to NATO's definition of defense spending.

We must work to reach that target through the budget process. Because this means committing considerable public resources, the government will keep communicating with the public to explain how greater defense spending strengthens our national security.

Our priorities include strengthening asymmetric warfare and air defense capabilities, and building a defense industry capable of sustaining the fighting strength of our armed forces.

The "T-Dome" initiative put forward by President Lai aims to integrate the detection and interception capabilities across every layer of our air defense system.

Its effectiveness will depend on whether we can effectively integrate heterogeneous equipment, from high-end to low-cost sensors and interception systems, together with AI-assisted rapid decision-making, well-trained operators, and the ability to keep functioning even when the system suffers serious damage.

The second topic today is maritime security. The current situation in the Strait of Hormuz shows that once maritime activity is disrupted, the effects can reach economies well beyond the coastal states themselves.

Maritime domain awareness has therefore become an important area for international cooperation. Working with partners to share intelligence, and drawing on emerging open-source intelligence (OSINT) tools, will give us a fuller picture of the situation.

Commercial satellite imagery, vessel-tracking data, and other publicly available information help us cross-check competing accounts, detect patterns, and document acts of coercion.

The National Security Council and the Ocean Affairs Council have worked closely with international partners to take stock of the legal, diplomatic, technical, and physical tools available to counter coercion at sea.

Undersea cables are one important example. They carry the international communications on which financial transactions, commerce, and public services heavily rely, and protecting them matters greatly to countries around the world and to Taiwan alike.

Cooperation on monitoring, on gathering and sharing evidence, on repair operations, and on alternative backup connections can both reduce the impact of any disruption and narrow the openings for coercion.

We oppose any unilateral change to the status quo by force or coercion, and we are working with international partners to give effect to that position through concrete action.

The third topic today is emerging technology. At President Lai's direction, I have devoted considerable effort to this area, helping to bring innovation and new technologies into our national security work.

This also means facing an uncomfortable institutional reality. Our organizational culture, our bureaucratic procedures, and the way our existing institutions are built or designed may not keep pace with the speed of today's technological innovation.

Taiwan enjoys considerable strengths in semiconductors, information and communications technology, and precision manufacturing. We must connect this expertise far more closely with the people responsible for defense and security.

We must bring military personnel, scientists, and businesses together to solve problems. To do that, we have to allow room for trial and error, honest feedback, and practical pathways that turn the results of experimentation into actual procurement.

Drones are very much part of this overall picture. The government has submitted a supplementary budget to the Legislative Yuan to advance a defense drone procurement program.

Among the various unmanned platforms to be acquired, coastal reconnaissance and strike drones and small unmanned attack craft will be developed and produced domestically.

This proposal is intended to strengthen our national defense while giving domestic manufacturers an incentive to invest in technology and in resilient production.

We have also set a clear direction for supply-chain security. Drones produced and procured by the government, including for civilian use, must rely entirely on a non-red supply chain, so as to reduce risk and dependence while we continue moving toward production in Taiwan.

This is both a security requirement and an industrial goal, and meeting it depends on component development, testing, and steady, reliable market demand.

Beyond drones, the opportunities also include AI-assisted analysis, resilient communications, sensors, cybersecurity, and tools that improve the efficiency of maintenance and logistics.

The questions we need to ask are all practical ones. When communications go down, can the system keep working? Can operators carry out repairs? Can the system be updated quickly? Taiwan's technological strengths should help our defense systems as a whole work more effectively.

The fourth topic today concerns "gray-zone threats," which, regrettably, have become part of Taiwan's everyday security environment.

Military pressure, cyberattacks, and cognitive and information manipulation all pose serious tests for Taiwan. As we respond, we must preserve the government's capacity to govern and ensure that the public can access reliable information.

Under the Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee, which President Lai chairs personally, we are advancing this work on several fronts to shore up the weak points that gray-zone actors might seek to exploit.

Civil defense training helps improve people's ability to respond in an emergency and to support their own communities. By the end of last year, more than 100,000 people had completed a 15-hour certified training course, and that number continues to grow.

On stockpiling, we must ensure that food, fuel, energy, shelter, and medicine are amply supplied and readily available.

We must strengthen the protection of infrastructure and networks, so that operations can continue even when power or communications are interrupted.

Through military service, reserve recall training, paying taxes, and civil defense preparation, our citizens share in the responsibility for national security. And of course, international cooperation becomes more persuasive only when we demonstrate concrete action of our own.

I hope today's discussions will help us refine this work, including learning faster from operational experience, developing more comprehensive policy tools to safeguard maritime security, bringing Taiwan's technological strengths into our defense, and making civil defense preparation more effective.

We welcome your valuable experience, and we are glad to share our own.

Our purpose, of course, is to preserve peace and the freedom of Taiwan's people to determine their future. Better preparation gives us a basis for pursuing that purpose with steadiness and strength.

Thank you once again for inviting me to take part in this Dialogue. I wish today's Taipei Security Dialogue every success and a productive outcome. Thank you.