It was a report that sounded bizarre on its face: A secret Taiwan navy delegation visits Russia under the cover of a commercial delegation, ostensibly to buy icebreakers but actually to try to acquire diesel submarines.
The story, in the Chinese-language Next Magazine, was immediately denied by the Taiwanese military with two successive press conferences, and the odds are very long that the Russians would antagonize Beijing by selling its breakaway island province submarines or the technology to make them.
But Taiwan’s navy has long been trying to get its hands on diesel submarines, and in fact the story may not be so far-fetched, defense specialists say. Although the Bush administration in 2001 announced an arms sales package that included eight boats, procurement of the weapon of choice against trade-crippling Chinese naval blockades has proved difficult. The US ceased building diesel subs in the 1950s, and the remaining manufacturing countries have little interest in putting their lucrative relations with Beijing into jeopardy for coming to Taiwan's help.
This makes perfect sense to me, as I wrote early this year:
I'm thinking that Taiwan should pursue arms from Russia as a hedge against losing American sales. I commend the Obama administration for not caving to Chinese pressure, but the pressure is bound to have an effect. Remember, Western Europe used to sell to Taiwan but now only America does. Even if we continue to sell to Taiwan, the scope of what we sell might decrease under pressure. Taiwan could use Russian submarines, especially.
As to Russia not wanting to antagonize China? Well, that ship may have sailed and there are good reasons for Russia to arm Taiwan (and Vietnam and India, too, for that matter), as I noted in my linked post:
Russian sales would bolster another place considered by Peking to be a rebellious province, thus diverting Chinese attention from Russia's vulnerable Far East. And anything that bolsters Taiwanese defense capabilities will tend to make it easier for America and Japan to intervene to protect Taiwan and oppose China.
Remember, too, that Russia needs foreign arms sales if they are to maintain their domestic arms industry and eventually rearm after two decades of post-Soviet military rot. The Russians figured out at long last that selling to China just led China to steal the technology and make their own versions to compete with Russian models.
One last comment: the cover story for the Taiwanese mission was to buy icebreakers? Really? Or was this just to get our attention and prod America to figure out a way to provide the subs lest Taiwan move closer to Russia and away from us?
