State-run China Shipbuilding Corp (CSBC) now looks like an underdog in its bid to build part of the eight diesel-electric submarines that the US has promised to get for Taiwan.
But CSBC chairman Hsu Chiang (
"CSBC can build both merchant ships and warships, which is quite unique in the world. We have enough resources to attract leading international defense companies like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon to form a partnership with us," Hsu said.
"The partnership would give us a chance to have a share in the market of weapon systems for submarines. That would be a profitable business," he said.
"In the future, we will still take orders for merchant ships. But we will keep 30 percent of our business for the building of military vessels," he said.
"It is a matter of investment return. A 170,000-tonne merchant ship costs only NT$1.5 billion, while a 4,000-tonne Chengkung-class frigate costs more than four times that. The profit margin between the two is obvious to see."
Despite CSBC's heavy lobbying of the government to get a piece of the submarine deal, Hsu's vision for the company clearly involves more than the production of submarines.
But it is not clear whether Hsu will stick around long enough to make the vision come true.
Ex-CSBC engineer Chen Hsiao-ming (
"The CSBC is a state-run company. But it does not necessarily get all the support it needs from the government.
Although the government has declared support for the CSBC's bid to build parts of some of the eight submarines, Hsu does not feel its presence," Chen said.
Chen, who had been the deputy manager for the building of seven Chengkung-class frigates for the navy, said Hsu does bring some hope to the company, which would not need to be saved were it not for interference from the navy.
"Most of the CSBC's former chairmen were from the navy. It also accepted a lot of retired personnel from the navy. I was of the navy, too. But I must admit that a lot of the people from the navy did more harm than good to CSBC," Chen said.
"Now the CSBC has almost gotten rid of control by the navy. It could run normally like a company. It still has the potential to become a great company," he said.
Hsu is a scholar with no connections to the military.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods