The US has said it will help Taiwan build domestic diesel-electric submarines, Minister of National Defense Yen Ming (嚴明) said on Monday at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.
Yen was quizzed on the subject days after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) told US policymakers in a video conference on Wednesday last week that Taiwan needs diesel-electric submarines to strengthen its defensive capabilities.
“There seems to be a consensus in Taiwan that we should seek foreign technology to help us build [the submarines] ourselves,” Ma said at a forum organized by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Asked at the committee hearing whether a policy to build indigenous submarines had been finalized, Yen said the government has launched a plan to construct them locally so after trying and failing to buy US submarines for 13 years.
On Monday, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said in a statement that it has begun preparations to build submarines in Taiwan and that the project’s chance of succeeding will grow if the US helps manage it, facilitates technology transfers, or engages in coproduction.
The ministry said Washington agreed to sell the nation submarines in 2001, but no progress has been made on the deal since then.
Under pressure from lawmakers across party lines and the public, the ministry has decided to begin the pre-production phase of the project to show its resolve to defend Taiwan, the statement said.
The ministry said it has discussed the matter with the US, and Washington has expressed its understanding of Taiwan’s determination to build its own submarines.
The ministry also plans to seek the support of US policymakers to further its plans through bilateral military exchanges, according to the statement.
Also at the hearing, Yen confirmed that the nation has decided to buy two of the four frigates that it may be offered by the US, after factoring in budget constraints and other issues.
The US House of Representatives on April 7 authorized the sale of four Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided missile frigates to Taiwan, while officially reaffirming its support for the Taiwan Relations Act days before the 35th anniversary of the landmark document.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching