The navy will receive two Kidd-class guided missile destroyers from the US next year, six months ahead of schedule, a legislator said yesterday.
The delivery of two out of four second-hand destroyers on order is expected in the second half of 2005, "about half a year ahead of schedule," said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Sun Kuo-hwa (
The faster-than-expected delivery of the destroyers was due to the assistance of 400 personnel from Taiwan in overhauling the ships at a US naval shipyard in Charleston, South Carolina, Sun said.
The warships "would be a big boost to the Taiwan navy's air defense capability, considering [China's] powerful air defense capability," said Sun, who was fresh from a visit to the shipyard.
He said the navy badly needed the destroyers, which will be armed with SM-2 Standard missiles and a system capable of simultaneously tracking dozens of incoming airborne threats.
The surface-to-air missiles have a range of 144km and vastly outperform the Standard I missiles on Perry-class frigates.
The Kidd warships "will boost the navy's surveillance capabilities, and provide Taiwan with a maritime anti-missile platform," said Tamkang University professor Wung Ming-hsien (
"As the software installed on the Kidd-class destroyers provides coordinated interfaces with the US military, it will cut short the time of US military intervention should war break out in the Taiwan Strait," Wung said.
China in 1996 lobbed ballistic missiles into the shipping lanes of Taiwan to intimidate voters not to re-elect then president Lee Teng-hui (
The crisis ended only after the US sent two battle carrier groups to waters off Taiwan in an apparent warning to Beijing not to invade the country.
Taiwan acquired the four 9,600-tonne warships as part of an arms package offered to the island by US President George W. Bush in April 2002. The other two Kidd-class destroyers are scheduled to be delivered in 2006.
The deal, which followed a two-year review by the US of Taiwan's air force and navy, has infuriated China.
In related news, China's state media said yesterday that China has deployed military helicopters, patrol boats, armored fighting vehicles and bomb disposal robots around the massive Three Gorges Dam area to prevent an extremist attack.
"The important anti-terrorism measures taken by the military police on the main bridges, dams and hydro-electric stations have basically been completed," said the China Times.
The report said military police have been training a "pool of talented anti-terrorist professionals."
While no mention was made of who China suspects could target the dam, Beijing was outraged in June at a US suggestion that Taiwan could attack the project as a counter measure to any Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Chinese military officials at the time warned that any attack from Taiwan would provoke a devastating response from China and vowed that "the dam will not collapse and cannot be destroyed."
The controversial and expensive Three Gorges project, meant to tame the flood-prone Yangtze and increase the country's power supply, is the largest water control project in China.
Construction began in 1993 and upon completion 32 power-generating units will be in operation.
The project is expected to cost 180 billion yuan (US$22 billion).
Critics have cited environmental problems, including silt accumulation and pollution controls in hundreds of cities and villages, along the reservoir.
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