US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert on Monday said that he had talked with Taiwanese military officials about Taiwan building its own diesel submarines.
Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank in Washington, he made a rare reference to the talks as part of a guarded answer to a direct question on the subject.
After being reminded that Taiwan had been trying for many years to buy submarines from the US, Greenert was asked whether he had any suggestions for his colleagues in Taiwan about independently building submarines.
Photo: CNA
“Yes, I have had conversations with my Taiwan counterparts... but I won’t discuss them here — I can’t. I will leave it at that,” Greenert said.
Asked about the state of US-China military-to-military relations, Greenert said that the recent incident in which a Chinese fighter flew to within meters of a US military plane near Hainan Island should not be used to define the relationship. He said that solutions to such problems would not be found overnight, but that progress was being made.
“The bottom line is that we cannot have miscalculations,” he added.
“It is my job to keep the East China Sea and the South China Sea calm and I think working together is a step in the right direction to do that,” he said.
Following an hour-long presentation on the US’ rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region, the admiral was asked whether — in view of Chinese missile advances — it would still be relatively safe to send US aircraft carriers into the Taiwan Strait in the case of an emergency.
The question was asked because China has built a ballistic missile that is said to be capable of sinking a moving aircraft carrier, alongside a push to broaden its anti-ship cruise missile capabilities.
“We work very hard on defeating that,” Greenert said.
He told the audience that such a missile had to follow a complicated “kill chain” that would have to start with China detecting a carrier from a significant distance and then tracking it long enough “to be confident to go ahead and launch this ballistic missile.”
The missile had to travel far enough to turn its sensors on, look for and find the carrier, track it and finally strike, he said.
“Any break in that chain means a mission failure,” he said.
“We are confident that we have made terrific headway in this direction and we continue to move forward,” he said.
Greenert said that the US needed to build a constructive relationship with China and that there was great potential for it to prosper alongside China.
“We [each] have a big stake in one another,” Greenert said.
He said the Chinese navy was expanding into the western Pacific and into the Indian Ocean, but that while Beijing wanted a global navy, he had been assured that it did not want “a global posture.”
Greenert said he had “a lot of interaction” with his counterpart, People’s Liberation Army Navy Admiral Wu Shengli (吳勝利), and there had been “pretty frank and candid” conversations.
In Taipei, Ministry of National Defense spokesman Major General David Lo (羅紹和) yesterday reiterated that the military has been pursuing a plan to build submarines on its own, despite technical barriers, while also making continued efforts to buy such vessels from the US.
“There are a number of core technologies in the building of submarines and most of these involve proprietary technologies… Therefore assistance from the US can help Taiwan to overcome the hurdles and make progress on this plan,” Lo told a news conference.
“At the same time, we still look to purchase American submarines to enhance our self-defense capability, which can help safeguard peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region,” he said.
Additional reporting by Jason Pan
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique