As the navy phases out its World War II-era Yang-class destroyers in favor of Kidd-class destroyers, it has also started to search for a replacement for its Knox-class frigates, defense sources said yesterday.
The navy has had eight Knox-class frigates in service since 1992. The frigates are equipped with the most effective anti-submarine warfare sensors that the navy has ever had at its disposal.
These frigates, built in the early 1970s, were already approaching their service ceiling of 20 to 30 years when the US delivered them to the navy between 1992 and 1998.
Though useable for a few more years, the Knox-class frigates are already spending much more time in port than at sea.
All the Knox-class frigates are based at the Suao military port.
A naval officer who spoke on condition of anonymity said many of the Knox frigates have developed serious mechanical problems, causing their patrol missions to have been greatly reduced.
"The No. 932 Chiyang, for instance, has become inoperable. Its problems are both mechanical and structural," the officer said.
"Other ships in the same class are not in much better shape. They are either short of spare parts or damaged in some vital way," he said.
A senior official serving with the navy general headquarters acknowledged that the Knox-class frigates are not in good condition but denied that the ships have become "beached wrecks."
"The combat readiness ratio of the Knox-class frigates is still over 50 percent, which is good in terms of ships of this age," the official said.
"We hope to use these ships for another four to six years. We are desperate to find a replacement for the Knox, but it is not easy to find one for the moment," the official said.
The navy is divided over what type of ship should be chosen to replace the Knox, sources said. One group favors smaller ships, of around 2,000 tonnes in displacement, while the other group argues that the navy needs a larger platform to accommodate not only old weapon systems from the Knox but also new ones that could be added. The Knox has a displacement of 3,877 tonnes.
If the navy chooses smaller ships, it might ask the state-run China Shipbuilding Corp (CSBC) to build the new vessels. This would be welcomed by local shipbuilders who would benefit from any contracts won by CSBC.
But the larger platform might win out because many in the navy don't want to wait for new ships to be constructed domestically, which would take many years and entail great cost. For these reasons, many in the navy are inclined to buy ships from the US second-hand market.
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
RSS