PGM a likely start for U.S.-Taiwan joint weapons production: Expert
ROC Central News Agency
10/21/2022 02:32 PM
Taipei, Oct. 21 (CNA) The U.S. could outsource production of precision-guided munitions (PGMs) and fighter jet components to Taiwan to speed up arms transfers, military expert Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said Thursday amid reports of U.S. plans to produce weapons with Taiwan.
Nikkei Asia first reported the plan Wednesday, citing multiple unnamed sources as saying that U.S. President Joe Biden's administration was considering teaming up with Taiwan to manufacture weapons to more effectively deter China.
Initial discussions focused on whether to allow American defense companies to provide weapons technology to manufacturers in Taiwan or to produce U.S. weapons using Taiwan-made parts, according to the report.
Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, which includes many American defense contractors among its members, told Reuters that the plan would likely focus on providing Taiwan with more munitions and established missile technology.
Su, an analyst at the military-founded Institute for National Defense and Security Research, agreed with that assessment.
Su's view
The U.S. is not likely in the early stages of the project to enlist Taiwan directly in the manufacturing of advanced weapons such as F-35 fighters, Su told CNA on Thursday.
Instead, Taiwan's contribution will most likely be to make parts and components for fighter jets and precision guided munitions (PGM), such as missiles or guided bombs, he said.
Su said that given warnings from U.S. 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 U.S.
The U.S. could also outsource the production of some F-16 parts and components to Taiwan after conducting the necessary technology transfers, Su said, because it would help clear some of the backlog the U.S. is facing in delivering F-16 fighter jets 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 Toyotas, which use Japanese-made engines and are assembled in other countries, he said.
Another analyst's view
Another military analyst was less optimistic about the reported strategy.
Chieh Chung (揭仲), an associate research fellow with the National Policy Foundation, a Taipei-based think tank, questioned the feasibility of the plan and whether it could actually achieve the desired results.
Opening additional production lines on U.S. soil for weapon systems for Taiwan would be much quicker than building a whole new arms production facility in Taiwan from scratch, he told CNA on Thursday.
That would also spare the U.S. from having to have semi-finished weapons shipped back to its facilities for final assembly and quality control, which would be counterproductive, he argued.
An even faster way to expedite arms transfers to Taipei would be for Washington to move Taiwan to the top of its arms transfer priority list, he said.
(By Novia Huang, Sean Lin and Joseph Yeh)
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