On Sept. 13, two air force jets crashed into a mountainside, sadly taking the lives of three airmen. The accident raised questions from government and opposition politicians as to whether the air force’s F-5 series jet fighters are getting too old to fly. Less well known, perhaps, is the fact that Taiwan’s armed forces have another high-risk weapons system where an accident could happen anytime, namely its submarines.
Taiwan has two Guppy-class submarines. The ROCS Hai Shih, which carries the hull number SS-791, was originally a US vessel, the USS Cutlass (SS-478), which was commissioned in 1945 and transferred to Taiwan in 1973. The Hai Shih has been in service for 66 years. The ROCS Hai Pao was originally called the USS Tusk. It was commissioned on April 4, 1946 and was transferred to Taiwan in 1974, so it has been in operation for 65 years.
Taiwan’s continued use of such ancient submarines is a “miracle” unique in the world. Both submarines suffer from warped pressure hulls, metal fatigue and unforeseen risks. In May last year, I wrote an article in which I described in detail what would happen in the event of the accidental sinking of one of these submarines. The navy would immediately implement a joint US-Taiwan rescue plan, by which the US Navy, on being informed about the sinking, would use a C-5 Galaxy cargo plane to carry the equipment and crew of its Deep Submergence Unit to Taiwan from its base in San Diego, California. This transfer would probably take more than 50 hours, and the surface support vessel would take at least 11 days to reach the scene of the accident. Thus, the rescue mission would clearly miss the critical period for saving the crew.
Take for example the major repairs and maintenance being carried out on the Hai Shih. Difficulty in obtaining replacement parts such as batteries has caused the overhaul to drag on for more than 18 months. Even without taking into account salaries and seagoing allowances, the refitting is likely to cost at least NT$200 million (US$6.59 million).
Even if the overhaul is somehow completed and the Hai Shih starts operating again, it will no longer have any role to play. Although the two Guppy-class subs are still officially in service, the navy risks submerging them as rarely as possible.
Even when they do go underwater, they are not allowed to dive deep, and they are not even permitted to operate in areas where the sea is deeper than 100m. Clearly, this does not allow them to realistically play the role of hypothetical enemy vessels in military exercises.
Official navy statements for public consumption claim that the two submarines are still being used for training, but in reality some of their training functions can be performed using simulators developed by the Chung-shan Institute of Science and Technology. Letting these two submarines continue in service is, therefore, both unnecessary and inefficient. It is a meaningless waste of resources.
Even Taiwan’s more advanced Chien Lung (劍龍)-class submarines have been in service for nearly 25 years, which doesn’t leave long before they reach the maximum 30 years for which submarines can be used. If the authorities put off a decision to update and upgrade those subs any longer, the associated risk will increase.
The navy would like to obtain new submarines so that it can decommission the two Guppy-class subs. However, 10 years have passed since 2001, when then-US president George W. Bush announced his government’s intention to sell Taiwan eight diesel-electric submarines.
When it was in opposition, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) spoke out against buying these subs on the grounds that they were too expensive. After President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office in 2008, he at first took no clear stand on the issue. In fact, documents recently released by WikiLeaks could be interpreted as showing that he set the issue aside intentionally. Not until last year did Ma start openly calling on the US to sell the submarines.
Despite Ma’s change of tack, amid the current -competitive-cooperative relationship between the US and China, and given the present state of US-China-Taiwan trilateral relations, it is very unlikely that the US will push through the sale in the short term, meaning it could still take three to five years. That being the case, the Ma administration should come up with a workable contingency plan, otherwise the risk will not just remain, but it will keep increasing.
As for the navy, it can’t go on turning a blind eye to the risk. The vicious circle of aging equipment and gaps in training means that an accident could happen any time, suddenly and without warning.
The problem of the two Guppy-class submarines should be considered separately from the issue of weapons procurements. The subs should be decommissioned now, instead of waiting for an accident to happen.
If one of the subs were to sink, it would bring sorrow to more than 100 families. More than that, it would also seriously damage the prestige of Taiwan’s armed forces, as well as the government’s authority to rule the country.
Wang Jyh-perng is an associate research fellow at the Association for Managing Defense and Strategies.
Translated by Julian Clegg
A foreign colleague of mine asked me recently, “What is a safe distance from potential People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force’s (PLARF) Taiwan targets?” This article will answer this question and help people living in Taiwan have a deeper understanding of the threat. Why is it important to understand PLA/PLARF targeting strategy? According to RAND analysis, the PLA’s “systems destruction warfare” focuses on crippling an adversary’s operational system by targeting its networks, especially leadership, command and control (C2) nodes, sensors, and information hubs. Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, noted in his 15 May 2025 Sedona Forum keynote speech that, as
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) last week announced that the KMT was launching “Operation Patriot” in response to an unprecedented massive campaign to recall 31 KMT legislators. However, his action has also raised questions and doubts: Are these so-called “patriots” pledging allegiance to the country or to the party? While all KMT-proposed campaigns to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers have failed, and a growing number of local KMT chapter personnel have been indicted for allegedly forging petition signatures, media reports said that at least 26 recall motions against KMT legislators have passed the second signature threshold
The Central Election Commission (CEC) on Friday announced that recall motions targeting 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) have been approved, and that a recall vote would take place on July 26. Of the recall motions against 35 KMT legislators, 31 were reviewed by the CEC after they exceeded the second-phase signature thresholds. Twenty-four were approved, five were asked to submit additional signatures to make up for invalid ones and two are still being reviewed. The mass recall vote targeting so many lawmakers at once is unprecedented in Taiwan’s political history. If the KMT loses more
Taiwan’s unconditional support “for all legitimate and necessary actions taken by the government of India to safeguard national security and fight terrorist forces that cross borders to attack innocent civilians” marked a monumental shift in the relationship between Taipei and New Delhi. At a time when the Indian government sent several delegations of parliament members to convey to the rest of the world Pakistan’s role in sponsoring terrorism against India, Taiwan became one of the few nations that unequivocally supported India’s military operation, “Sindhoor.” Sure, this change in bilateral ties did not happen in a vacuum. Over the past decade,
RSS