Taiwan plans to buy US-made torpedoes and heavy tanks to boost its defense capabilities despite improving relations with China, reports said yesterday.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has ordered the Ministry of National Defense to draft a shopping list that includes MK-54 torpedoes, dozens of M1A2 tanks and amphibious landing vehicles, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) reported.
If acquired, the MK-54s would be used to replace the Navy’s aging MK-46s, it said.
The ministry said the procurement list had yet to finalized.
In January, Washington announced a weapons package for Taipei that includes Patriot missiles, Black Hawk helicopters and equipment for Taiwan’s F-16 fleet, but no submarines or new fighter aircraft.
Beijing reacted angrily to the arms deal, saying it would cut military and security contacts with the US.
Meanwhile, the military started a computerized wargame simulating a D-Day-style attack by China yesterday, the ministry said.
During the five-day drill, Chinese forces attack Taiwan from Guangzhou and Nanjing, while Taiwanese forces test counterattack strategies.
“The purpose of the drill is to test our defense capabilities in the case of the People’s Liberation Army launching an invasion,” a defense ministry official said, declining to provide details.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
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BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
MIXED SOURCING: While Taiwan is expanding domestic production, it also sources munitions overseas, as some, like M855 rounds, are cheaper than locally made ones Taiwan and the US plan to jointly produce 155mm artillery shells, as the munition is in high demand due to the Ukraine-Russia war and should be useful in Taiwan’s self-defense, Armaments Bureau Director-General Lieutenant General Lin Wen-hsiang (林文祥) told lawmakers in Taipei yesterday. Lin was responding to questions about Taiwan’s partnership with allies in producing munitions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Given the intense demand for 155mm artillery shells in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and in light of Taiwan’s own defensive needs, Taipei and Washington plan to jointly produce 155mm shells, said Lin,
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