Local experts hold mixed views on U.S.-Taiwan arms co-production plan
ROC Central News Agency
10/20/2022 08:26 PM
Taipei, Oct. 20 (CNA) A report that Taiwan and the United States are in talks to co-produce weapons in order to speed up their transfer to Taipei has led to widely differing views among Taiwanese experts Thursday with one saying that the plan was likely to happen and would benefit both sides while another cast doubt over its feasibility.
The co-production plan was first reported in a Nikkei Asia article published on Wednesday, which cited multiple unnamed sources as saying that U.S. President Joe Biden's administration was considering the joint production of weapons with Taiwan in a bid to more effectively deter China.
The initial discussions on the matter focused on whether to allow American defense companies to provide weapons technology to manufacturers in Taiwan or to produce the arms in the U.S. using Taiwan-made parts, according to the Nikkei Asia report.
Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, which includes many American defense contractors among its memberships, later confirmed the Nikkei report to Reuters.
"It's right at the beginning of the process," he said, adding that Washington and Taipei have yet to determine which weapons would be considered as part of this plan, but that the initiative would likely focus on providing Taiwan with more munitions and established missile technology.
Both Taiwan and the U.S. government were tight-lipped about the reported plan when asked for comment.
The nation's top intelligence chief Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) told lawmakers in Taipei on Thursday that they should not worry too much about news reports quoting a "businessman," in an apparent reference to Hammond-Chambers.
Asked to comment, Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), an analyst at the military-founded Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told local media that he believed that it was "highly likely" that the reported plan was genuine.
The U.S. government has previously authorized Taiwan to produce a number of weapon systems, such as warplanes and warships, according to Su.
Washington also cooperated with Taipei on building the CM-11 Brave Tiger battle tanks in the 1980s, he said.
Many Taiwanese private companies are already part of the U.S. defense industry supply chain, according to Su, adding that co-producing weapons is beneficial to both sides.
Such collaboration can speed up arms productions, lower production costs, and not just meet Taiwan's defense needs but also help to upgrade the domestic defense industry, he added.
According to information available online, the CM-11 Brave Tiger was developed by the U.S.' General Dynamics and Taiwan's Army Armored Vehicle Development Center and introduced to the public in April 1990.
The tank is a hybrid M60 chassis fitted with the turret from the older M48 Patton and the fire control system of the M1 Abrams.
Chieh Chung (揭仲), an associate research fellow with Taipei-based think tank National Policy Foundation, however, questioned the feasibility of the reported plan and whether it could actually achieve the desired results.
Citing the Nikkei report, Chieh said the reported plan would be intended to "increase production capacity for U.S.-designed arms" and "speed their transfer" to Taipei.
However, building an extra production line on U.S. soil for a weapon system for Taiwan will be much quicker than building a whole new arms production facility in Taiwan from scratch, he argued.
Also, Chieh said that, according to his understanding, the U.S. government still had concerns over people in Taiwan leaking classified information to China during joint production, despite the Nikkei report saying the opposite.
This means that semi-finished weapon systems in Taiwan have to be sent back to the U.S. to be assembled with key components or vice versa in the future, which will not achieve the goal of speeding up weapon transfers at all, he added.
Chieh said a much easier solution to speeding up arms transfers to Taiwan would be to move it to the top of Washington's transfer priority list.
(By Joseph Yeh)
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