• Military

• WMD Menu                           

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

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

U.S. barred Taiwan from buying parts for local missiles: Ex-military research chief

ROC Central News Agency

12/14/2022 08:15 PM

Taipei, Dec. 13 (CNA) The former head of the Taiwan military's top research unit has disclosed in a recently published memoir that the United States had prevented Taiwan from obtaining some key components for domestic long-range missiles so that Taiwan would be forced to buy U.S.-made ones only.

Retired Rear Admiral Kung Chia-cheng (龔家政), the former president of the state-run weapons developer National Chung-Shan Institute of Science & Technology (NCSIST), made the accusation during a memoir published by Academia Sinica, the top research institution in Taiwan, last month.

In the memoir, Kung, who served as NCSIST chief from December 2003 to December 2007, during which the unit developed some of the nation's top long-range missiles, including the Hsiung Feng II (HF-2) and Hsiung Feng III (HF-3) anti-ship missiles, said it was difficult for Taiwan to obtain some key components for those missile systems at first.

This was because Taiwan is not a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), an informal political understanding among 35 member states that seeks to limit the proliferation of missiles and missile technology, which the U.S. and Japan are members of, according to Kung.

For instance, Taiwan had proposed buying JP-10 jetting fuels from the U.S. but was rejected by Washington, "because the U.S. knew we were getting close to the final stage of developing our own missiles," Kung said.

To push the U.S. into selling Taiwan the fuel, Kung said he openly stated at a Legislative session that Taiwan was able to produce its own JP-10 jetting fuels, even though in reality the NCSIST could only made them in very small amounts at that time.

After learning about the news, the U.S. immediately granted approval to Taiwan to buy JP-10 jetting fuels from Washington, he said.

He also said that Taiwan also needed to acquire highest-precision strategic grade gyroscopes from the U.S. in order to build the HF-2 and HF-3 missiles, but the U.S. was unwilling to do so.

Kung said he had raised the issue again during a high-level U.S.-Taiwan arms sales meeting but was told that the U.S. would not sell the gyroscopes because "if Taiwan fails in making HF-2 missiles, it would be forced to buy U.S.-made Tomahawk and Harpoon cruise missiles."

Luckily, the NCSIST was able to find a Taiwanese who had previously worked in an American defense company which designed highest-precision fiber-optic strategic grade gyroscopes used in nuclear-powered submarines, Kung disclosed.

Ultimately, the NCSIST succeeded in building Taiwan's own long-range missiles despite the lack of U.S.-made key components, he said.

As Taiwan's main hub for domestically produced weapons, the NCSIST is responsible for the development, manufacture, and sales of defense technology and weapons and domestic and international cooperation in technology, information exchange, and promotion.

When reached for comment, an American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) spokesperson gave the following statement, "Consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States makes available to Taiwan defense articles and services necessary to enable it to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability."

AIT represents U.S. interests in Taiwan in the absence of official diplomatic relations.

(By Novia Huang and Joseph Yeh)

Enditem/HY