On Oct. 3, the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) think tank, the New Frontier Foundation, published its seventh defense policy blue paper, entitled Bolstering Taiwan’s Core Defense Industries (振興臺灣核心國防產業). The report says that if the DPP is returned to government in 2016, it will adhere to the line of “self-reliant national defense” and accelerate the policy of indigenous submarine production. It further proposes the concept of a two-stage indigenous submarine production program. This policy aims to establish an underwater deterrent force of at least eight submarines, and hopefully to improve the research and development capabilities of the nation’s shipbuilding industry. However, it is doubtful whether the DPP’s self-reliant national defense policy will receive the support of its rival, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Over the years, major arms purchase plans have often been sacrificed for the sake of ideological rivalry between the pan-blue and pan-green political camps. The fundamental reason for this is that the ruling and opposition parties have not broken out of a framework of debate that sees arms procurement deals as profligate, in that the nation pays an exorbitant price for mostly US-made weaponry. It is often argued that Taiwan is a US pawn and that it is engaged in an arms race with China.
Another key reason is that the KMT, which has always held a majority of seats in the legislature, tends to only consider its own interests and electoral prospects, rather than handling major arms purchase plans from the standpoint that national security should take priority over party interests. Under the former DPP administrations, the KMT often went so far as to stubbornly prevent the government from carrying out its policies.
For example, as long ago as April 2001, the US announced its willingness to sell Taiwan a range of military equipment, including eight diesel-electric submarines, but the KMT, which was then in opposition, persistently boycotted this procurement plan by blocking it in the legislature’s Procedure Committee no less than 51 times.
This is the main reason Taiwan has not been able to establish a submarine fleet that would have a strong strategic deterrent capability, and why the cross-strait military balance keeps leaning further in favor of China.
If the 2016 presidential election results in the DPP returning to power, but without having a majority of seats in the legislature, the nation will once more have a divided government. In that case, it is quite likely that the DPP’s indigenous submarine production plan would again be the target of a boycott.
Although the KMT publicly maintains that indigenous submarine production is one of its confirmed national defense policies, it also says that it would seek to procure submarines from abroad at the same time.
In other words, the KMT is not confident about the nation’s ability to build its own submarines. Then-minister of defense Kao Hua-chu (高華柱) voiced these doubts in 2012, when he described a proposal by CSBC Corp, Taiwan, to build military submarines as “muddleheaded and audacious.”
In view of these doubts, the KMT thinks that Taiwan should pursue an opportunist policy of keeping both options open. That being the case, how can one believe or expect that the KMT would give the DPP’s national defense policy its wholehearted support — especially if the DPP wins the presidential election in 2016?
Yao Chung-yuan is a strategy consultant for the Association for Managing Defense and Strategies and a former senior deputy director of the Ministry of National Defense’s Strategic Planning Department.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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