The Ministry of National Defense said yesterday that purchasing submarines from the US remained a priority for the military, amid reports by local media that Taiwan was positioning itself to manufacture its own vessels.
“We have yet to hear anything about the ‘policy’ that was reported [in the media]. For the moment, buying new submarines from the US is our policy,” ministry spokeswoman Major-General Lisa Chi (池玉蘭) said.
Chi’s remarks were in response to a report in yesterday’s Chinese-language United Daily News that said the Cabinet had requested that the ministry re-evaluate the possibility of Taiwan building its own submarines rather than waiting for US government approval for the procurement of eight diesel submarines, to be sold at a total cost of NT$410 billion (US$14 billion).
Chi said the ministry never received notification that the US government would cancel its arms sales to Taiwan or put them on hold, adding that purchasing major weapons from the US remained the military’s policy.
“The government has taken a number of approaches to convince the US government to speed up the procurement process. This has not changed,” Chi said.
In its report, the paper said the ministry had commissioned a German consultant to evaluate the possibility of Taiwan building its own vessels, adding that the ministry had performed a similar evaluation four years ago.
The main task of the exercise, the paper said, was to compare the cost of building a submarine domestically with the US government’s price tag.
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