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Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.

We're coming to you live from London.

I'm Krupa Bhati, and it's very good to have your company.

We start this hour with Taiwan's plans to introduce a $40 billion

additional defence budget to counter the rising threat from China. Now, this money will focus

on Taiwan's drones, missiles and missile defence systems. President William Lai unveiled that

package today and said that there is no room for compromise on national security.

To take you back, China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory.

And this conflict is deep-rooted. It goes back to 1949 when the Chinese Communist Party won the Chinese Civil War.

This then led to the founding of the People's

Republic of China on the mainland, but the opposing nationalist party retreated to the island of Taiwan,

which is roughly 100 miles from the coast of southeast China. Tensions have been rife ever since.

So what is the motivation for this announcement now? A question my colleague,

James Copnell, put to Fifeen Lin, Deputy Secretary General of Taiwan's National Security

Council over in Taipei. It will help us to boost our defence capabilities. I think it's

very critical for our defence preparedness. In the past couple of years, I think the last eight years, that the DPP administration,

including the current line administration, we have continuing to seek to doubled and to increase

our military spending by the legislation and also the pass of the bill.

But this supplemental budget really, I think,

is the benchmark to show our determination in defending ourselves. So I think it's pretty clear

that we have a full commitment that also resolve to defending ourselves. Do you have specific

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