There was an atmosphere of “optimistic expectation” at the first day of the Taiwan-US Defense Industry Symposium yesterday, although Taiwanese firms need to do more to enhance security, said Institute for National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), who attended the closed-door event.
The symposium is held in Taiwan during the first half of each year, followed by a symposium in the US in the second half of the year.
The opening ceremony was attended by former US Marine Corps Forces, Pacific commander Steven Rudder and US-Taiwan Business Council president Rupert Hammond-Chambers.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Domestic think tanks and defense vendors attended as well, including the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, Aerospace Industrial Development Corp and GEOSAT Aerospace and Technology Inc.
Twenty-seven US defense contractors participated in the event — two more than a year ago — including Lockheed Martin Corp, Raytheon Co, BAE Systems PLC, AeroVironment Inc and Northrop Grumman.
Su said in an interview that the symposium is a semi-official industrial cooperative platform that has operated for more than two decades.
Its content is declared only by the organizer, to protect business secrets and promote mutual trust between the Taiwanese and US governments.
“The opportunity for collaboration between governments is ephemeral,” Su said.
Mutual trust is the cornerstone of industrial collaboration, he added.
Su also said that while Taiwan has the fundamental technologies it needs, its capabilities in corporate security and governance such as confidentiality protection, security management, counterintelligence and anti-infiltration still need to be enhanced.
Taiwan has to conform to international regulations in every aspect, including the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Good and Technologies, and the Industrial Safety Management Regulations, he said.
That would build mutual trust and allow Taiwan to share relevant techniques in industrial collaboration with other democratic nations, further increasing its own production capacity and defending itself in line with other democratic nations against provocations from Russia and China, he added.
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