Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming (湯曜明) said yesterday that in order to counter Beijing's growing force of submarines and to keep the sea lanes open in time of conflict, Taiwan needs Kidd-class destroyers.
"China's submarines still pose a potential threat to Taiwan's security. We need the Kidd mainly because of its excellent anti-submarine capabilities," Tang said.
"Taiwan is an island nation. We count on sea traffic for exports and imports. The sea lanes are our economic life lines and must be protected," he said.
Tang made the remarks yesterday during a break in his closed-door testimony before the legislature's Defense Committee and in response to inquiries from the press over why the military is so determined to acquire the four Kidd-class destroyers, despite opposition from quite a number lawmakers on the committee.
Before the meeting, the military made a point of visiting every lawmaker on the Defense Committee in an attempt to persuade its members to support the purchase of the ships.
Despite their best efforts, however, most Defense Committee members present yesterday remained reluctant to stand behind the deal.
Committee member Lin Nan-sheng (林南生), a KMT lawmaker, said the military told legislators that the US is willing to reduce the price of the four Kidds by five percent.
"The price reduction is good. But that isn't our main consideration. We are much more concerned about the fact that maintenance and repair fees for the four Kidds will be much higher than the cost of purchasing them," Lin said.
Lin also said that while the US says it is willing give a five-percent discount on the purchase of the ships, it is not prepared to reduce the cost of overhauling the four decommissioned destroyers before delivery.
The sale price of the four Kidds is set at NT$28.4 billion, not including the cost of overhauling and renewing equipment and weapons systems. The sonar of the Kidd, for instance, needs to be upgraded, the cost of which is estimated at NT$350 million for the four ships, a naval official said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching