Taipei, Aug. 5 (CNA) Taiwan should urgently strengthen its domestic defense manufacturing capabilities to become more self-reliant in a crisis and give potential allies more time to respond, a visiting former United States defense official has said. Jedidiah Royal, former principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told CNA in Taipei on Tuesday that developing Taiwan's indigenous defense industry is a time-sensitive priority. Royal said many in Washington were disappointed after Taiwan's opposition-controlled Legislature passed a special defense budget in May that removed funding for domestic defense production originally proposed by the Cabinet. The opposition's decision suggested some in Taiwan were not feeling "the same urgency that I feel right now of the importance of developing Taiwan's domestic defense manufacturing capacity," he said. Following passage of the special budget approving NT$780 billion (US$24.2 billion) in funding to buy U.S.-made weapons, Taiwan's Cabinet proposed a separate six-year special budget totaling NT$210 billion to procure domestically produced drones.