By: Mike Yeo
MELBOURNE, Australia — Taiwan is short five critical pieces of submarine technology that it needs to achieve its aim of building a new class of indigenous submarines, according to a Taiwanese defense analyst.
Speaking to Defense News, Liao Yen-fan, a Taipei-based analyst for the cybersecurity research firm Team T5 that also focuses on air power and the Taiwanese military, said the local defense industry still needs to import the technology for these five items, which include modern torpedo tubes and periscopes.
Liao was citing representatives from Taiwan’s Ching Fu Shipbuilding, the company in charge of designing the combat system and the largest subcontractor for Taiwan’s domestic submarine program. The program currently is in the design phase and is led by the state-run National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, or NCSIST. CSBC Corporation is the main contractor.
It's unclear what other critical submarine technology Taiwan requires, although it likely includes air-independent propulsion technology or an equivalent to allow the submarine to be practically silent when operating in a submerged environment.
Liao told Defense News that Taiwanese delegations have recently been dispatched around the world to try and secure the needed technology transfer, including to the United States and Japan. However, it is understood that Japan has refused Taiwan’s request for assistance, almost certainly out of fear of antagonizing China, which sees Taiwan as a breakaway province and has not ruled out the use of force to reunify the island with the mainland.
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