The US could outsource production of precision-guided munitions and fighter jet components to Taiwan to speed up arms transfers, Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the Institute of National Defense and Security Research, said on Thursday amid reports of US plans to work with Taiwan on arms production.
Nikkei Asia reported the plan on Wednesday, citing multiple unnamed sources as saying that the administration of US President Joe Biden was considering teaming up with Taiwan to manufacture weapons to more effectively deter China.
Initial discussions focused on whether to allow US defense companies to provide weapons technology to manufacturers in Taiwan or to produce US weapons using Taiwan-made parts, the weekly magazine said.
Photo: CNA
Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the US-Taiwan Business Council, which has many US defense contractors among its members, told Reuters that the plan would likely focus on providing Taiwan with more munitions and established missile technology.
Su agreed with that assessment.
The US is not likely in the early stages of the project to enlist Taiwan directly in the manufacturing of advanced weapons such as F-35 jets, Su said.
Instead, Taiwan’s contribution would most likely be to make components for fighter jets and precision-guided munitions, such as missiles or guided bombs, he said.
Su said that amid warnings from US officials that China could try to take Taiwan by force by 2027, outsourcing casings for precision-guided munitions to Taiwan would make sense because it would cut costs and shorten lead times while keeping key technologies in the US.
The US could also outsource the production of some parts for F-16s to Taiwan after conducting the necessary technology transfers, Su said, adding that it would help clear some of the backlog the US is facing in delivering the aircraft to its allies.
That would be consistent with the global trend toward a horizontally integrated production process, as seen in the manufacturing of the multinational Eurofighter Typhoon and Toyota vehicles, which use Japanese-made engines and are assembled in several countries, he said.
Another military analyst was less optimistic about the reported strategy.
Chieh Chung (揭仲), an associate research fellow at the National Policy Foundation, a Taipei-based think tank, questioned the feasibility of the plan and whether it could achieve the desired results.
Opening additional production lines in the US for weapons systems for Taiwan would be much quicker than building a whole new arms production facility in Taiwan from scratch, Chieh said.
That would also spare the US from having to have semi-finished weapons shipped back to its facilities for final assembly and quality control, which would be counterproductive, he added.
An even faster way to expedite arms transfers to Taiwan would be for Washington to move the nation to the top of its arms transfer priority list, he said.
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