The Ministry of National Defense yesterday denied a magazine report saying Taiwan plans to procure four German-made -diesel-electric submarines that were originally intended for Greece.
The Hong Kong-based Chinese-language magazine, Asian Week, reported in its latest edition that Greece had ordered four Type 214 diesel-electric submarines from German company Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft GmbH (HDW), but because Greece was struggling to save itself from bankruptcy and was unable to pay for the submarines, HDW planned to sell them to Taiwan.
The report said HDW would otherwise face bankruptcy.
The ministry yesterday released a statement denying the report.
The ministry said Taiwan has been seeking to acquire diesel--electric submarines through an arms sale from the US. It would be a government-to-government procurement, the ministry added.
According to the Asian Week report, HDW officials in October secretly visited Taipei to discuss selling the four Type 214 submarines to Taiwan and that the military showed interest in the sale.
The report said the military told HDW officials that if the submarines did not cost more than US$800 -million each, if the company could promise between 10 and 20 years of logistics maintenance and if the company represented Taiwan to negotiate with the US and the US agreed to the arms sale, Taiwan would procure the submarines.
The report added that HDW had officially informed the US about the proposal.
The Type 214 is a diesel-electric submarine developed by HDW. It features diesel propulsion with an air-independent propulsion system using Siemens polymer electrolyte membrane hydrogen fuel cells.
The Asian Week report said the Type 214 was one of most advanced diesel-electric submarines in the world and could meet Taiwan’s defense requirements.
In 2001, former US president George W. Bush’s administration offered to provide eight diesel-electric submarines to Taiwan for about US$12 billion.
The deal did not materialize due to political wrangling in Taiwan’s legislature, moves by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the US to appease Beijing amid efforts at cross-strait reconciliation and pressure from China on Washington.
Military experts have said the ministry had given up on acquiring submarines from the US and had decided to launch an indigenous program with foreign assistance.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS