Taipei should consider acquiring Indian-made air defense systems, reflecting a growing recognition of the need to diversify the nation’s defense partners, Taiwanese International Affairs Department Director Alexander Huang (黃介正) said during this year’s Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition.
For decades, Taiwan’s air defense posture has been overwhelmingly dependent on US-made equipment, with limited procurement from European suppliers. This dependency has created strategic vulnerability, as supply lines could be affected by political calculations in Washington and by production bottlenecks. With China’s expanding missile arsenal and increasingly sophisticated tactics, which range from “gray zone” airspace incursions to the development of hypersonic delivery systems, Taiwan is in need of a layered, resilient and politically sustainable air defense network.
Turning to India could reduce single-source dependency and signal to Beijing that Taiwan has a widening circle of partners willing to bolster its defensive capabilities. India’s maturing defense manufacturing base offers genuine opportunities for such diversification. Systems such as the Akash and Barak-8 have evolved through years of operational use, including in India’s own high-altitude and contested border regions.
The country’s growing record as an arms exporter, from BrahMos cruise missiles to artillery and radar systems, gives it an abundance of credibility as a reliable supplier of defense equipment. Moreover, Indian equipment is generally cheaper than its Western counterparts, important for Taiwan as it seeks to build defensive depth without overstretching its budget. Perhaps just as significant, procurement from India carries fewer overt political conditions than defense purchases from the US or Europe, making it an attractive option for diplomatically constrained Taipei.
The hurdles remain substantial. Taiwan’s air defense architecture is heavily integrated with US-built sensors, radars and command-and-control systems. Incorporating new suppliers requires integration in the system.
Despite these challenges, a Taiwan-India defense partnership could serve both sides. For Taiwan, limited procurement of Indian systems, especially in areas such as short and medium-range surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), anti-drone defenses and mobile radar, could widen its supplier base and free up resources to continue investing in higher-end platforms from the US and Europe. Coproduction or local assembly agreements could enhance Taiwan’s ability to maintain and replenish these systems during a crisis, an advantage often overlooked in purely financial comparisons. For India, becoming a supplier to Taiwan would underscore its ambition to emerge as a net security provider in the Indo-Pacific region and lend weight to its Act East policy. It would also demonstrate that New Delhi’s defense industry was competitive not only in the global south, but also in technologically advanced markets.
However, such cooperation would not be cost-free. The US might welcome the spread loading, but would still need to ensure interoperability and export-control compliance for US components within Indian systems. Domestically, the Indian government would have to weigh the benefits of enhanced defense exports and strategic influence against the risks of its already fragile relationship with China. For Taiwan, meanwhile, procurement decisions that provoke strong Chinese reactions have to be balanced against their actual military payoff, particularly if integration or maintenance challenges limited their effectiveness in combat scenarios.
Ultimately, Taiwan’s best course appeared to be adopting a balanced approach. It could selectively acquire Indian systems to address gaps in its layered defense network while maintaining deep technological and operational ties with its existing suppliers. This hybrid model would allow Taipei to diversify without sacrificing the advanced capabilities it still needs to counter the most acute threats.
Even limited collaboration with Taiwan, whether in procurement, joint research and development or knowledge-sharing on air defense, would signal India’s readiness to play a constructive security role in the Indo-Pacific without abandoning its strategic autonomy. Such a partnership could contribute not only to Taiwan’s defense resilience but also to the emergence of a more interconnected regional security architecture capable of deterring coercion in the Taiwan Strait.
Akansh Khandelwal is an assistant professor at OP Jindal University and works on international relations and economics.
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