Taiwan's legislature has approved a major defense-autonomy and drone law, and the opposition KMT wants it to turn drones into the island's next chip-scale industry — good news for Taiwan's manufacturers if the money actually flows.

• The bill sets aside around $40 billion Taiwan dollars a year for six years, roughly $240 billion in total, run by the economics ministry.
• The KMT caucus, led by Fu Kun-chi, says Taiwan can build a full drone supply chain and become the world's biggest drone production base.
• The cabinet plans to countersign the law and fold the spending into this year's extra budget, with changes to next year's main budget.
• A new national strategy committee will oversee the plan, with party-nominated experts and public review reports, and the law includes items the U.S. side pushed for.
• The pitch is jobs and export dollars: militaries everywhere are buying drones for asymmetric warfare, and Taiwan already has the IT supply chain to serve them.

Outlook: The fight now moves to whether the cabinet completes the countersignature and how the money gets divided — the next round of political trench warfare.