Taiwan's $4.6b defence budget top-up includes suicide drone boats

Spending plans also incorporate more than 600 coastal surveillance and reconnaissance drones, over 40,000 coastal attack drones, and the first batch of over 100 small suicide drone boats, it added.

"National security cannot wait, the defence budget cannot wait, and defence self-reliance cannot wait either," the cabinet said.

Last month, parliament approved a six-year plan to spend $240 billion on drones, which in principle sets annual spending at $40 billion, and rejected a competing government plan for $210 billion.

For next year, the government has proposed overall defence spending to top $1 trillion for the first time.

Taiwan, like US allies in Europe and elsewhere, faces calls from Washington to spend more on its own defence, something President Lai Ching-te has enthusiastically embraced. Lai rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims, saying only the island's people can decide their future.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard: Editing by Sharon Singleton)