A former US Department of Defense official says that “with the right encouragement” Japan might be persuaded to help Taiwan build diesel-electric submarines.
“Japan is both capable and possibly willing,” Hudson Institute Center for American Seapower director Seth Cropsey said.
Writing on the RealClearDefense Web site, Cropsey — a former deputy undersecretary of the US Navy — said: “A redoubled Taiwanese effort to engage Japan’s assistance in building the indigenous submarine is worth the effort.”
He said that faced with the possibility of a blockade or amphibious attack, and unaided by its friends in a decades-long effort to build a defensive submarine force, Taiwan is to upgrade its naval capabilities by building its own submarines.
Cropsey said that now is the time to ask Japan for help because Tokyo is “understandably and increasingly concerned and irritated by China’s aggressive naval activity that frequently encroaches on Japanese territory.”
A strong naval presence in the South China Sea that is friendly to Japan and the US is worth incurring China’s displeasure, Cropsey wrote.
“By providing the framework for a bolstered Republic of China Navy [ROCN], Japan would improve its security without having to dedicate more resources to its own defensive structure,” he added.
As Taiwan remains a vital component of US naval strategy, Japan’s genuine interest in adding to Taiwan’s defensive ability complements Washington’s obligation to protect both Taiwan and Japan, he said.
“We are living in a time when the US is the strongest global power as well as the world’s pre-eminent seapower — helping Taiwan acquire modern capable submarines materially adds to both our security and that of our allies and partners in East Asia,” he said.
Cropsey said that many Taiwanese officials have spoken of their intent to secure international assistance before developing an indigenous defense submarine.
He said that the US has not constructed a diesel submarine since the late 1950s, but could provide design engineers.
“The US could work with Japanese shipbuilders, who make excellent submarines,” he said. “The US could also relax export controls on items needed to build the submarines.”
“Several US defense contractors have solid working relationships with Taiwan,” he said.
“Working with a US company to design an ROCN submarine could set Taiwan on an accelerated path towards development while giving Taiwan control over production and manufacturing,” he added.
One option is to use the blueprints of an existing model and customize it to fit Taiwan’s requirements, he said.
“Transnational industrial cooperation with Japan could help strengthen security partnerships between defense ministries that face the same threat,” he added.
Cropsey said that a dozen submarines connected with advanced sensors and weapons could contest the Chinese navy for control of the waters surrounding Taiwan.
COSTLY TECH FAILURE: More than 25,000 files for nearly 8,000 students from 81 schools were lost when system administrators updated a server, the Ministry of Education said The academic records of 7,854 high-school students have been lost due to a hard-drive failure, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The records were being stored at National Chi Nan University, which was commissioned by the ministry’s K-12 Education Administration to host a computer server of student portfolios that universities could access to evaluate their applications. Under a program introduced in 2019 for high-school students starting that year, students are to create portfolios to be used for university applications, which include their grades, extracurricular activities and other information related to their character and achievements. System administrators discovered that files were missing when rebooting
921 EARTHQUAKE: The magnitude 7.3 quake left 2,456 people dead and 10,718 injured, while 53,661 houses were fully destroyed and 53,024 houses damaged The Central Weather Bureau yesterday received about 50,000 views on Facebook after it posted the data that it collected on Sept. 21, 1999, when the nation was devastated by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake. The data showed that the 921 Earthquake hit the nation at 1:47am, with the epicenter being 7km southwest of the bureau’s quake detection center in Nantou County’s Yuchi Township (魚池) at a depth of 8km. The quake left 2,456 people dead and 10,718 injured, while 53,661 houses were fully destroyed and 53,024 houses damaged, with the cost of the damage estimated at NT$300 billion (US$10.8 billion at the current
CONFUSING RESULTS: A New Taipei City worker tested positive for COVID-19 in a rapid test and a PCR test, but negative in a traditional nucleic acid test, the CECC said Travelers from Bangladesh, Brazil and Peru are no longer required to quarantine at a government center, and from Saturday can choose to quarantine at hotels, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. The three nations are no longer considered “key high-risk countries,” as their COVID-19 case numbers have continued to fall, the CECC said, adding that no travelers from these countries have been confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 in the past two months. The revised classification would allow travelers from the three countries to choose where they stay during their mandatory 14-day quarantine, although they would be required to pay
‘TECHNICALITY’: The full moon was at 7:55am, but the Taipei Astronomical Museum said it technically remained a ‘real’ full moon when it rose again at night The Mid-Autumn Festival had a “real” full moon, the first time the astronomical categorization has fallen on the day of the festival since 2013, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said yesterday. The festival, which falls on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar — which this year was yesterday — does not always coincide with an exact full moon, the museum said. A full moon occurs when the Earth is between the sun and the moon — or, more precisely, when the ecliptic longitudes of the sun and the moon differ by 180° — which has a cycle of
RSS