Space technology development is an increasingly important and emerging sector. President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has emphasized the importance of the sector and identified it as one component of the government’s “six core strategic industries.”
On Feb. 18, the government approved a draft bill regulating space-based activities, promoting the development of space-related industries, and decoupling the National Space Organization from the Ministry of Science and Technology and making it an independent agency.
One aim would be to enable Taiwan-made rockets to launch locally made satellites, to enhance data-gathering capabilities on weather patterns, create images for meteorological applications and better forecast weather events.
Taiwan has dipped its toe in the space sector with its Formosat program, with the first satellite launched in 1999. The most recent, the Formasat-7 constellation, was launched in 2019.
Even though the involvement of Taiwan-made components and competencies has increased, and Taiwanese universities and large electronics firms have long been involved in the development of spacecraft components, subsystems and payloads, the components were often produced for one-off projects and were not commercialized, relying instead on public funding. If Taiwan wants to become more self-reliant, not only in hardware, but also in skills and training, it needs to take a more systematic and scaled-up approach. This is the objective of the latest push.
One way to do this would be to collaborate with other countries with more advanced competencies. In the current climate, India would be a good partner, for several reasons:
First, there are the existing affinities. India is one of the countries targeted by the government’s New Southbound Policy, and the two countries have warm relations, aided by shared concerns over an adversarial China. The two countries also have a need to develop sophisticated weather tracking technologies and skillsets, and India has a developed space sector, with proven space programs.
Working together on these projects would not only benefit Taiwan’s ability to develop hardware, and cultivate talent and competencies in an emerging sector, it would contribute to expertise in another, much-needed application of the technology: national defense.
For more than two decades, China has been developing space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities that can now compete with those of the US. It has advanced capabilities, with military reconnaissance satellites supporting geospatial intelligence capabilities that enable it to see at night and through clouds. These technologies are crucial in the approach to potential conflict to monitor and assess what a hostile party is doing, in terms of deployment and positioning, location of production capabilities, and patterns of behavior.
Should conflict break out, they would be crucial for providing intelligence on troop movements, damage assessment, and also on supporting information such as telecommunications, navigation and weather.
It is also important to promote training of competency in researching, developing and manufacturing intelligence-gathering capabilities, as well as the ability to analyze the intelligence.
However, Taiwan has little hope in catching up with China, not just because of the fewer resources available, but also because of the long lead time that China has accrued.
The government should develop capabilities fine-tuned to Taiwan’s requirements and increase cooperation with other countries to develop local talent, but also avail itself of the increasingly sophisticated commercial options in the interim period.
On Monday, the day before Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) departed on her visit to China, the party released a promotional video titled “Only with peace can we ‘lie flat’” to highlight its desire to have peace across the Taiwan Strait. However, its use of the expression “lie flat” (tang ping, 躺平) drew sarcastic comments, with critics saying it sounded as if the party was “bowing down” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Amid the controversy over the opposition parties blocking proposed defense budgets, Cheng departed for China after receiving an invitation from the CCP, with a meeting with
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is leading a delegation to China through Sunday. She is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing tomorrow. That date coincides with the anniversary of the signing of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which marked a cornerstone of Taiwan-US relations. Staging their meeting on this date makes it clear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intends to challenge the US and demonstrate its “authority” over Taiwan. Since the US severed official diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, it has relied on the TRA as a legal basis for all
A delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials led by Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is to travel to China tomorrow for a six-day visit to Jiangsu, Shanghai and Beijing, which might end with a meeting between Cheng and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). The trip was announced by Xinhua news agency on Monday last week, which cited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Song Tao (宋濤) as saying that Cheng has repeatedly expressed willingness to visit China, and that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee and Xi have extended an invitation. Although some people have been speculating about a potential Xi-Cheng
The ongoing Iran conflict is putting Taiwan’s energy fragility on full display — the island of 23 million people, home to the world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing, is highly dependent on imported oil and gas, especially that from the Middle East. In 2025, 69.6 percent of Taiwan’s crude oil and 38.7 percent of liquified natural gas were sourced from the Middle East. In the same year, 62 percent of crude oil and 34 percent of LNG to Taiwan went through the Strait of Hormuz. Taiwan’s state-run oil company CPC Corp’s benchmark crude oil price (70 percent Dubai, 30 percent Brent)
RSS