Delivery dates and contract amount not disclosed
The United States will assist Taiwan’s submarine fleet development program by providing key technological components for submarines. This was reported by the South China Morning Post newspaper on Wednesday, citing the island’s defence ministry.
Washington is said to have agreed to provide Taipei with three types of submarine equipment: digital sonar systems, integrated combat control systems and periscopes. The timing of the deliveries and the amount of the contract was not disclosed.
A programme to build its own submarine fleet began in Taiwan in November last year. Designers from the CSBC shipbuilding corporation were tasked with building eight submarines in-house. The first $1.7 billion prototype is due to be unveiled in the summer of 2024.
According to analysts, Taiwan has no experience in building submarines and will not be able to do without foreign, primarily US, technology in the implementation of this programme.
The launch of this project is linked to the need to replace Taiwan’s outdated submarine fleet. It consists of four diesel-electric submarines. Of these, only two, built in the Netherlands in the 1980s, are actually in service. The others, the extremely obsolete US Guppy class, a legacy of World War II, are used as training ships.
Taiwan has pushed since 2001 for the possibility of buying eight submarines from the United States, its main military equipment supplier. However, the US side has not included the submarines among the weapons approved for delivery to the island. This is opposed by China, which considers Taiwan one of its “temporarily breakaway” provinces.