Taiwan’s planned acquisition of anti-ship and air-defense missiles is aimed at countering Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) amphibious assault ships and advanced ballistic missiles, a researcher said.
According to projections by Taiwanese and US militaries, China’s amphibious capabilities would threaten Taiwan in five years, said Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), an associate research fellow at the Institute of National Security and Defense Research.
China is laying down more amphibious assault ships and tank-landing ships, including the 40,000-tonne Type 071 amphibious assault dock and the 25,000-tonne Type 075 landing helicopter dock, he said.
The procurement of the ships illustrates the PLA’s expanding capability to launch multipronged amphibious operations, posing a security threat to Taiwan, he said.
A report by South China Morning Post said the PLA has deployed missiles in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces across the Taiwan Strait.
Although the specifications of the missiles have not been confirmed by publicly available sources, they are believed to be tipped with hypersonic warheads, Su said.
Taiwan’s efforts to obtain PAC-3 missiles from the US and improve its indigenous Sky Bow-series missiles should be understood as a response to China’s potential use of hypersonic missiles, he said.
Indigenous submarines and a plan to buy 400 ground-launched Harpoon missiles from the US would give Taiwan crucial capabilities in defending against an amphibious attack, he said.
The government on June 17 announced a NT$39 billion (US$1.4 billion) plan to buy missiles from the US, but did not identify the type of missile it is planning to purchase in the budget document.
A source familiar with the matter has confirmed that the budget is for the purchase of 400 Harpoon missiles. The source spoke on condition of anonymity.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
RSS