A cruise missile developed by the Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology (CSIST) has reached a range of 1,000km in field tests, defense sources said yesterday.
The test results were encouraging for the CSIST, which has spent several years on the project.
But the Hsiung Feng-IIE cruise missile, the first of its kind to be developed by the CSIST, has yet to undergo more tests to become reliable and deployable.
A prototype of the missile reached a range of 1,000km in a field test earlier this year over an offshore island. The prototype missile made a 20km circle around the island 50 times.
The test successfully found out the maximum range that the missile was capable of, but it failed to show how accurate the missile could be when aimed at a target.
With a range of 1,000km, the Hsiung Feng-IIE should be capable of reaching any important military assets along China's coastline.
But it remains to be seem whether the missile could actually hit the target.
It would be a bigger problem for the missile to try to reach an inland target in China, since it would have to be programmed with maps of inland China's terrain.
The military currently does not have such maps, but the US does.
A defense analyst, who preferred not to be identified, said that -- for the time being at least -- Washington is not likely to provide such critical data to Taiwan, since it might endanger the relations between Washington and Beijing.
The Hsiung Feng-IIE could help neutralize the threat from China's cruise missiles, if it could reach targets inland.
But for the moment, the military has data only for China's coastal terrain, since Taiwan lacks surveillance satellites or long-range reconnaissance aircraft to gather information on inland areas.
Without such vital information, analysts say, the Hsiung Feng-IIE might have limited effects against China -- despite its 1,000km range -- and could be lethal only against targets in China's coastal provinces.
The Hsiung Feng-IIE is a variant of the Hsiung Feng-II anti-ship missile, which the CSIST developed on its own several years ago.
The development of the Hsiung Feng-IIE has been secretly proceeding for some years, with very little information released to the public about its progress.
The military is desperate to possess such cruise missiles in order to counter threats from China's own cruise missiles.
China has deployed a number of such weapons -- in addition to the thousands of ballistic missiles it has -- posing a new threat to Taiwan.
Some of China's cruise missiles are said to have ranges of between 2,000km and 4,000 km.
To deal with the new threat, the military has been installing or upgrading its land-based and air-borne radar systems and developing its own anti-missile weapons systems.
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