Two multi-billion dollar US arms deals to supply submarines and destroyers to Taiwan are mired in political and financial troubles, leading defense journal Jane's Defence Weekly said.
The proposed sales of eight diesel-electric submarines and high-tech destroyers "could be shelved by mounting political and financial problems," the London-based magazine said in an article to be published on Wednesday,
US President George W. Bush approved the submarine sale in April 2001 as part of the most comprehensive arms sales to the island since 1992.
However, the deal which could be worth US$11 billion has progressed slowly as the US has not built conventional submarines for more than 40 years.
"Nothing has changed since 2001," Jane's quoted sources in Taiwan as saying.
They said insistence the submarines be built in Taiwan "is very likely going to kill the whole deal," adding that Taiwan lacked the construction and testing infrastructure needed for such a project.
The cabinet in September proposed to Washington that local technicians should be engaged in building the submarines to provide the state-run China Shipbuilding Corporation with the technical expertise.
One key hurdle of the submarine deal is that the US has still not secured a modern design that satisfies Taipei, the defence sources in Taiwan complained.
According to Northrop Grumman Ship Systems president Philip Dur, the company is offering a modernized version of the Barbel-class submarine similar to the USS Blueback, Jane's said.
The offer, Dur said, was being made in partnership "with a European submarine house". Jane's said a US defense official confirmed the company is Germany's Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft.
Germany and Spain had reportedly declined to offer their designs for fear of offending China.
Taiwan has also long sought AEGIS-equipped ships. While Taipei bought four ex-navy Kidd-class destroyers as an interim measure, to date no progress has been made on securing the AEGIS system further than a promise that it would be approved "in principle."
"With the prospect of US policy toward arms sales to the region shifting dramatically if there is a change in administration following the November presidential elections, time for deals could be running out," the weekly said.
The US remains the leading arms supplier to Taiwan despite its shift of diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
Beijing has repeatedly protested against Washington's arms sales to Taiwan.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS