Satellite evidence indicating that China has built a “midget” submarine at its Wuchang shipyard in Wuhan might be of particular concern to Taiwan, analysts said.
“If built in significant numbers, small or midget submarines could further expand China’s gathering capabilities to invade Taiwan,” International Assessment and Strategy Center senior fellow Richard Fisher told reporters.
“A large number of small submarines could serve to increase the number of ports that China could attack by air and seaborne special forces,” said Fisher, an expert on China’s military.
IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly and News Corp Australia reported this week that DigitalGlobal satellite imagery has revealed a submarine with an approximate length of 35m and a width of 4m — estimated to displace from 400 to 500 tonnes — berthed at a pontoon used for fitting out submarines in China’s Hubei Province.
“The Wuchang shipyard is at the forefront of conventional submarine production in China,” Jane’s said.
The satellite imagery was recorded late last year, but has just been analyzed and released.
News Corp said the mini sub had not been “seen nor heard of” since the satellite images were made.
It is not known whether the small submarine spotted by the satellite is a one-off production model or part of a much larger fleet.
“Such a submarine is ideally suited to operate in the shallow waters of the East China and South China seas, hiding among the clutter of the seabed and noisy tidal currents,” News Corp said. “While able to carry torpedoes, military analysts believe the primary purpose of these commando submarines is to secretly deploy spies and special forces.”
Fisher told the Taipei Times that in the case of an invasion, the more Taiwanese ports that China can capture, the easier it would be for China’s People’s Liberation Army to use civilian-operated sea-lift capabilities to rapidly increase deployed forces for further operations.
He said that for other nations, China’s development of small submarines presents a considerable proliferation challenge.
“By virtue of their smaller size, they are also cheaper to acquire and maintain, and thus affordable to nations like Argentina, which China appears intent on re-arming,” Fisher said.
Development of small submarines also accelerates China’s ability to develop uncrewed underwater combat vehicles (UUCVs) that could be used for surveillance, targeting, mine-laying or attacking ships, he said.
“It should be expected that future Chinese UUCVs will also be deployed for use against Taiwan,” Fisher said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,