Taiwan's legislature passed an opposition-backed drone and defense-autonomy bill, and the economics ministry says it will slow the industry down rather than help it.

• The KMT version won out, and the cabinet's own draft was thrown out entirely.
• It creates a new committee where more than half the members are picked by legislative party caucuses, which the ministry warns could be stalled or blocked for political reasons.
• Military drone purchases must now come out of the regular annual budget, instead of a steady, predictable funding stream companies can plan around.
• Taiwan's drone supply chain already spans more than 274 firms — chips, flight controls, batteries, motors — and many have spent heavily expecting stable government orders.
• The ministry argues the law changes little in practice, since existing cross-agency meetings already do this work and the defense ministry could always buy drones from its normal budget.

Outlook: Expect a fight over who sits on the new committee, with drone makers left waiting on order visibility they say they need to keep investing.