The US will send a delegation to Taiwan as early as next month to give Taiwan's military a choice of diesel-powered submarines to purchase to satisfy Washington's agreement last April to supply submarines as part of a massive arms-sales package concluded at the time.
The delegation will be comprised of officials of the US Navy International Programs Office, which handles international arms sales for the US and its allies, and the Naval Sea Systems Command, which engineers, builds and supports the US' fleet of ships and combat systems, according to Pentagon sources.
The delegation will present two or three alternative design proposals for as many as eight diesel submarines sought by Taiwan's military to help counter a Chinese military attack strategy that would include a naval blockade of the Strait, an amphibious attack or a sea-based assault.
When Washington agreed to sell the submarines, the decision was widely questioned because the US has not built diesel submarines for a half century and had none to sell. Also, those countries who could have participated in the sale, notably the Netherlands and Germany, vowed not to let their shipyards build the vessels for Taiwan.
After a prolonged policy debate, the US Navy met with several potential shipbuilding contractors and last fall received eight or nine proposals for new subs that could be sold to Taiwan.
The US Navy has narrowed those design proposals to the two to three designs the team will present to Taiwan when it visits in the coming weeks.
The US commitment to sell the subs, "was a commitment made in earnest, and we intend to deliver on it," said Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Commander Jeff Davis.
"We have received a number of proposals from the industry, we are in the process of reviewing the proposals now, and we will send a team to Taiwan in the near future to present those options to Taiwan and let them decide what they want to do," Davis said.
Whether Taiwan's authorities will decide to buy the submarines remains to be seen.
"Submarines are not cheap," Davis said. "There are a lot of things domestically, politically, budgetarily within Taiwan that have to happen before they can submit the letter of intent to us," he said.
The letter of intent to purchase the vessels would be the first step in the purchase, but the process after that would be complex and lengthy, Davis said.
"We'll go on with the options, the ball will be in their court and they're going to have to make the political decision whether or not this is really what they want to do, and whether this is really the way they want to spend their defense dollars," Davis told the Taipei Times.
The cost of the eight fully-equipped submarines that Taiwan has requested could be as much as US$6 billion, experts say.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon is expected to transfer four highly-equipped Kidd-class destroyers to Taiwan by early next year, Pentagon officials say.
The vessels, which could cost some US$2 billion, are considered to be "the most powerful destroyers built for the US fleet," a defense official told the Taipei Times.
The guided-missile destroyers Kidd, Callaghan, Scott and Chandler, are now in mothballs in Seattle and Philadelphia and would have to be outfitted from scratch to make them available for the Taiwan navy, the official said.
Originally built for the Shah of Iran before he was deposed in the late 1970s, the ships are well-suited to countries like Taiwan, which have limited military resources, the official said.
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