A ranking Taiwanese official called for both more advanced fighter aircraft and submarines:
"The Chinese mainland's military might keeps growing at a fast pace in the past few years, posing a grave threat to Taiwan," deputy defence minister Yen Teh-fa told reporters on the sidelines of the US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference in Annapolis, Maryland from September 29-Oct 1.
The conference, the 12th since 2002, discussed Taiwan's Quadrennial Defense Review and examined the island's defence needs against an increasingly assertive Chinese military, Taiwan's state Central News Agency reported.
Regarding hoped-for weapons acquisitions from the United States, the island's leading arms supplier, Yen said Taiwan now gives priority to submarines.
We can't provide them because we don't build conventional submarines. And none of our allies are big enough to resist Chinese pressure to refrain from selling them.
I don't know why we don't build conventional submarines any more. I know, nuclear subs allow us to deploy from the continental United States. The range means our boats would have to be far larger than European conventional subs that patrol close to their home ports.
But if rotated through Singapore, northwestern Australia, Japan, and Guam, conventional subs wouldn't have far to sail. They wouldn't be nearly as strategically mobile as nuclear subs, but I don't want to replace our nuclear boats--just supplement them. And where else would we need to rush subs that isn't in the western Pacific?
But I digress.
Taiwan needs subs. While Taiwan is putting assets in place like small stealthy combatants to operate in the Taiwan Strait while having larger vessels and anti-submarine aircraft to hold open lines of supply out to the east (and Taiwan needs air power to keep the Chinese off their backs), submarines are a missing capability.
In an invasion scenario, subs can operate in the Taiwan Strait against invasion flotillas. And as I've noted for many years, having Taiwanese Harpoon-equipped submarines at sea gives us the ability to quietly intervene before we've made the open decision to intervene. If submarine-launched missiles are striking Chinese vessels, who can say that Taiwan isn't firing all of them?
And in a blockade scenario or bombardment scenario designed to demoralize Taiwan for lesser gains, Taiwanese subs could counter-blockade China's trade.
You'd think that Taiwan might be able to approach the Greeks to buy their subs since Greece is rather broke. And given that China has an aircraft carrier supposedly bought from Ukraine for non-military use (I believe that's the only reason it could be towed through the Turkish Straits), couldn't the Taiwanese arrange a cut out for buying used subs supposedly being junked? Couldn't we buy some subs that our allies can no longer afford for "training and study purposes" and then sell them to Taiwan after a decent interval?
Or what about India as a source? India has reason to keep China's navy busy north Singapore, no?
Taiwan needs a sense of urgency. They have only two subs that can put to sea and fight. And they are old. Let's not even talk about the other two antiques suitable for training only. If Taiwan waits too long, they'll lose all their trained submarine crews and will have to start over when they finally get new subs with green crews and no recent experience in operating subs. That's no way to fight and win outnumbered against the Chinese.
I hope we can supply Taiwan with subs, but regardless of what we do, Taiwan needs to find a way to get them.
