A NT$16.9 billion (US$534.93 million) project to upgrade the military’s missile defense systems would be completed this year, allowing the deployment of at least 100 long-range Hsiung Sheng missiles and providing more deterrence against China, military sources said on Saturday.
Hsiung Sheng missiles are an extended-range version of the Hsiung Feng IIE (HF-2E) surface-to-surface cruise missile, and are believed to have a range of up to 1,200km, which would allow them to hit targets well inside China.
They went into mass production in 2022, the sources said.
Photo: Hung Chen-hung, Taipei Times
The project is part of a special budget for the Ministry of National Defense aimed at improving naval and air combat capabilities, and while the project’s time line was four years, the majority of production would be completed this year, they said.
Two other versions of the HF-2E missile system are already in use by the air force. They are classified as either Type A or Type B, with Type A having a range of 500km and Type B having a range of 1,000km due to their different propulsion systems.
The military developed a new turbofan engine codenamed Kunpeng (鯤鵬) for the Type B missile, which is able to fly farther while conserving fuel, one source said.
The Type A missile was first tested in 2004, and the Type B in 2007, the source said, adding that both have since been in regular mass production and supplied to the air force’s missile brigade.
“The new longer-range surface-to-surface cruise missile ... looks similar to the American Tomahawk,” the source said.
Although the ministry has not specifically disclosed the range of the Hsiung Sheng, sources have put it at up to 1,200km.
A report submitted to the Legislative Yuan in April 2022 revealed that the Hsiung Sheng can carry high-explosive and fragmentation warheads.
“It can be used to conduct counter-attack operations against the enemy’s command posts, bunkers and airport runways,” the source said.
A previous report from the ministry to the Legislative Yuan also said that the Hsiung Sheng shares a production line with the surface-to-air variants of the Hsiung Feng IIE.
Although the military has not announced expected production capacity, a new missile production plant at the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology would likely allow more than 130 of the new missiles to be produced annually, the source said.
“When deployed alongside existing sea and air defense missile systems, the extended-range missile would improve overall combat readiness significantly,” the source said.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait share a political foundation based on the “1992 consensus” and opposition to Taiwanese independence, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today said during her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Both sides of the Strait should plan and build institutionalized and sustainable mechanisms for dialogue and cooperation based on that foundation to make peaceful development across the Strait irreversible, she said. Peace is a shared moral value across the Strait, and both sides should move beyond political confrontation to seek institutionalized solutions to prevent war, she said. Mutually beneficial cross-strait relations are what the
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
RSS