Taiwan’s defense ministry says there is no date set for the next phase of tests for the country's domestically made submarine. But how important are submarines to Taiwan's defense? TaiwanPlus sat down with Tom Shugart of the Center for New American Security to find out.
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00:00So we still haven't seen sea trials for these domestically made submarines.
00:04I want to first ask you, how important is this kind of capability given Taiwan's situation?
00:09I think that this is a relatively sensible way for Taiwan to spend some of its defense dollars in the sense that submarines,
00:16as long as they can get underway and get out to sea at the beginning of a crisis,
00:20they are a survivable platform in a way that a lot of other things that are on Taiwan are not survivable,
00:27given the scale of the threat from the PLA strike forces.
00:30If those submarines are at sea and they can hide, they need to rearm and refuel, they can do it in other places.
00:39There's certainly far more survivable than air bases or surface ships that are going to be very vulnerable to destruction,
00:46given the scale of the threat from the PLA and in particular the PLA rocket force.
00:52Now, let's say that's how one does manage to produce eight submarines and have them in the Navy.
00:56What kind of operations or missions would they be conducting?
01:00So if you look at the different mission sets that submarines can can diesel submarines like that can engage on the most ones that are the most important are probably anti surface warfare.
01:11So seeking surface ships, also ISR, so intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, the ability to be able to observe what somebody else is doing without them necessarily knowing that somebody is observing them.
01:24That's a that's a submarine mission that's been going on since.
01:26So and certainly when we look at the idea of a Chinese blockade of Taiwan, so something where Chinese surface ships and submarines are off of Taiwan's ports, preventing access by for resupply.
01:39You know, submarines are the perfect system to go out there and literally break some other ships in half and add a lot more risk to what's involved with attempting to isolate Taiwan by blocking its ports.
01:52These systems are extremely expensive and quite a big investment.
01:56Is there anything else from the naval side that's how one should be investing in the kind of things that I have recommended in testimony before to the US Senate and to the US China Commission are that I think Taiwan should be investing in systems that are survivable,
02:11that are distributed on a day to day basis that don't require fixed facilities to operate on an on a sustained basis and that are they're going to survive day one of a war, you know, submarines for the and also that are going to be good.
02:24It's that it'd be useful for trying to stop an invasion.
02:26So anti surface capabilities.
02:28I think some of the submarines that they're looking at meet all four of those requirements.
02:31There are other things I would also be working on.
02:33I'd be working on smart minds and I would have them deployed now in peacetime because one thing I think people should understand, like, I don't know.
02:40I think people should understand, like, I understand Taiwan's investing in mine laying ships and whatnot.
02:44If China has made the decision to invade Taiwan, they're not going to watch Taiwan lay the minefields to stop them.
02:49I think it's very unlikely.
02:50So minefields are great, but lay them now.
02:53Lots of coastal defense cruise missiles like the Harpoon missiles they're buying from the United States.
02:57That's great.
02:58They're on trucks.
02:59They're distributed.
03:00They're dispersed.
03:01They should be relatively survivable.
03:02Those are the kinds of things I would be investing more of.
03:05They should be more of.
03:06They should be more of.
03:08They should be more of.