The navy is to allocate NT$470 billion (US$14.57 billion) for 12 shipbuilding projects over a 22-year period, Navy Command Headquarters Chief of Staff Vice Admiral Mei Chia-shu (梅家樹) said yesterday.
The navy will first focus on building a new model of amphibious transport dock, high-speed mine-laying ships and a Tuo Jiang-class corvette next year, said Mei, who gave the figure for the 2018 to 2040 proposal, described as a rough estimate, at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee.
He said that contract designs for the new amphibious transport dock are to be finalized this year, to be followed by those for the high-speed mine-laying vessels and the Tuo Jiang-class ships — the nation’s first domestically developed stealth missile corvette.
Spending on these related projects is estimated at NT$60 billion from now through 2025, he said.
Mei was answering questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), who expressed concern about which vessels would be given priority on the agenda of the navy’s mega-program to build locally developed warships.
Chiang’s questions came as the navy was set to make public 12 major warship-building projects at an investment conference in Taipei later yesterday, as part of its efforts to demonstrate the nation’s resolve to build its own ships and to attract greater investment ahead of the first-ever International Maritime and Defense Expo, which is scheduled to be held in Kaohsiung from Sept. 14 to Sept. 17.
Local media have reported that the navy is hoping to build six to eight Aegis-equipped destroyers to replace its aging Kidd-class fleet.
Washington agreed to sell Taiwan eight diesel-electric submarines in 2001, but the deal has not been completed, as the US has not built diesel-electric submarines since 1959.
Since 2001, developing locally built warships has been a hotly debated issue in the face of increasing military enhancement efforts by other countries in the region.
It is difficult for Taiwan to acquire submarines from other countries due to Chinese obstruction.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on June 4 reaffirmed her goal of pushing for a self-reliant national defense force, when she boarded a domestically built warship off Yilan County.
“In addition to enhancing naval combat capacity, it will help the development of the shipbuilding and machinery sectors, as well as system integration,” she said.
“The government will continue to promote the policy of building its own vessels,” Taiwan Shipbuilding Industry Association chairman Han Pi-hsiang (韓碧祥) said on Sunday.
Han added that he welcomes the government policy and estimated that it would push the sector’s annual production value to NT$70 billion.
‘CORNERED ENEMY’: China’s rise is threatening peace and stability, and the US would aim to restrict it with help from allies in the Asia-Pacific, Soong Hseik-wen said A draft bill on protecting Taiwan from invasion is likely to be passed by the US Congress, but it remains to be seen how US President Joe Biden’s administration would implement the act if it is passed, Taiwanese academics said on Sunday. US Senator Rick Scott and US Representative Guy Reschenthaler on Thursday reintroduced the proposed Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act, which was shelved in September last year due to the impending US presidential election. Arthur Ding (丁樹範), a professor at National Chengchi University’s College of International Affairs, and Soong Hseik-wen (宋學文), a professor at National Chung Cheng University’s Graduate Institute
CHANGING IT UP: With Bopomofo rarely used outside of Taiwan, the lawmaker said that Romanization would help the government in its internationalization efforts Tainan City Councilor Lee Chi-wei (李啟維) yesterday called for the use of Romanized spellings to make Taiwanese dialects and languages internationally recognizable. Speaking at a news conference in Tainan to mark International Mother Language Day, Lee said the use of zhuyin fuhao (注音符號, Mandarin phonetic symbols commonly known as Bopomofo) made it difficult to promote interest in, or recognition of, the nation’s dialects and languages, as the system is not commonly used outside of Taiwan. “The legislature has already passed the Development of National Languages Act (國家語言發展法), but under the current circumstances that act is like a candle in the wind,” he
‘NOT COLD ENOUGH’: Schools are disregarding Premier Su Tseng-chang’s instruction that students may wear out-of-uniform clothing to stay warm, an association said An investigative report revealed that 72.5 percent of the nation’s senior-high schools and 95.6 percent of junior-high schools punish students for wearing unapproved winter clothes in contravention of educational guidelines, lawmakers and student rights advocates said yesterday. Speaking at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan, the Taiwan Youth Association for Democracy said there is an endemic disregard for the Ministry of Education’s regulations and that private schools are more likely to contravene ministry rules. The report is a compilation of 2,856 student reports about dress code reinforcement at 425 high schools and vocational high schools, the association said. Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌)
‘DECADES OF WORK’: Children born this year could see a human mission to the Red Planet during their lifetime, Yen Cheng said, adding that the only obstacle is money When NASA’s Perseverance rover touched down on the surface of Mars on Thursday after a seven-month journey, a Taiwan-born engineer was preparing to guide its first movements on the Red Planet. Yen Cheng (嚴正), a 61-year-old graduate of National Tsing Hua University and a 20-year veteran at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is taking part in his fourth Mars exploration mission with the agency’s Robot Interfaces and Visualization team, this time as its leader. Yen in a media interview described his expectations for the next few months as “living on Earth in Mars time.” As nighttime temperatures on Mars can drop
RSS