• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Taiwan needs U.S. assistance to build submarines: military report

ROC Central News Agency

2012/03/28 23:20:55

Taipei, March 28 (CNA) If Taiwan decides to start building its own military submarines, it will require technological assistance from the United States, according to a Ministry of National Defense (MND) report released Wednesday.

The report indicated that the government-owned shipbuilding company, CSBC Corp., Taiwan, will have to address its weakness in the areas of design, the production of key equipment and the development of professional techniques if it wants to build submarines.

However, CSBC cannot resolve the problem without the U.S.’ support, the report said.

The MND report was delivered to the Legislature in preparation for a briefing by Defense Minister Kao Hua-chu to the Legislative Foreign and National Defense Committee on Thursday.

In the report, the ministry noted that the Cabinet had set up an inter-ministerial task force in January 2003 to promote domestic production of submarines.

The next year, CSBC commissioned a German adviser, Dr. Wittekind, to assess Taiwan's capability to build its own submarines, the report noted.

Wittekind found that CSBC would only need to buy machine tools and make adjustments in its factories to be able to build the body of a submarine. However, it would still need to purchase key equipment and weapon systems from the United States, Wittekind concluded.

The MND report suggested that the Ministry of Economic Affairs assist CSBC in overcoming the obstacles to building submarines.

In 2001, the U.S. proposed the sale of eight diesel-powered submarines to Taiwan but the administration of George W. Bush did not follow through on the proposal. Since then, Taiwan has been trying to acquire U.S. submarines but Washington so far has not acceded to its requests.

Against this backdrop, Taiwan has decided to develop the skills and techniques to build the vessels at home.

(By Justine Su and Elizabeth Hsu)
enditem /pc