Australia’s decades-long battle to acquire a new French-designed attack submarine to replace its aging Collins class fleet bears all the hallmarks of a bureaucratic boondoggle.
The Attack-class submarine project, initially estimated to cost A$20 billion to A$25 billion (US$15.6 billion to US$19.5 billion at the current exchange rate), had by 2016 doubled to A$50 billion, and almost doubled again to A$90 billion by February last year.
Because of delays, the French-led Naval Group consortium would not begin cutting steel on the first submarine until 2024, which means the first vessel would not be operational until after 2030 — and the last of the fleet of 12 not until almost 2060.
Australia cannot afford to wait decades for new submarines. The threat from China has markedly increased since the project’s inception, a fact the Canberra government acknowledged in a recent defense review, which stated that China’s rapid and stealthy military buildup means that time is no longer on Australia’s side.
Following months of speculation, including indications from government sources that it might walk away from the deal, the Australian government on Monday confirmed it had reached an “agreement in principle” with Naval Group. However, it is only an agreement to sign the deal, and the project still has many powerful critics who believe it is too expensive and the submarines would be obsolete by the time they enter service.
The issue has become a scandal in Australia, the result of prevarication and bureaucratic inertia by multiple governments. It is a story all-too familiar to Taiwanese, who have watched impotently as multiple administrations squandered precious time and money, before the current government bit the bullet and launched an indigenous submarine program.
Known as the Haichang Project, the project is to build eight domestically produced submarines at an estimated cost of more than US$16 billion, with the first vessel scheduled for completion by 2025. Despite Taiwan’s lack of submarine-building experience, the program appears to be progressing well and construction of the first vessel is under way.
This raises the question of whether Taiwan might be able to tempt Australia to come on board its submarine program, should the French deal collapse. This is not as outlandish as it might seem for several reasons:
Canberra would not be able to turn to the US for assistance, since the US submarine industry is already operating at full capacity as it seeks to level the playing field with China, which has been churning out subs like sausages over the past decade and a half.
Despite the UK’s BAE Systems having a proven design with its Astute-class hunter-killer submarine, they are nuclear-powered and Australian law prohibits the operation of nuclear reactors.
Taiwan, on the other hand, is building essentially the same type of vessel that Australia is seeking: a modern, diesel-electric-powered attack submarine. While the specifications differ — Australia’s submarines would be larger, heavier and built to endure longer missions — it could be argued that the gravity of the threat from China necessitates some compromise on capability.
Spreading the cost of the program over a larger number of hulls would significantly reduce the unit cost of each boat, benefiting both nations. Taiwan would also benefit from Australia’s experience in submarine construction, and working together on a common submarine could provide a springboard for closer cooperation between the two nations’ navies.
Taiwan should extend an invitation to Australia to inspect its submarine program, and evaluate the design for suitability and adaptation to meet the Royal Australian Navy’s requirements. The icing on the cake is that Australia would be purchasing, not selling, military equipment from Taiwan — ensuring that Canberra was in complete compliance with Beijing’s precious “one China” policy, while strengthening military ties with a friendly neighbor.
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
RSS