The US defense industry believes it is being stopped from helping Taiwan build its own diesel-electric submarines, a former Washington official said on Thursday.
Taipei is now ready to proceed with a domestic submarine program and the US Congress should determine exactly what the official US policy is, said Mark Stokes, executive director of the US-based think tank Project 2049 Institute.
Stokes, who served as senior country director for Taiwan and China in the Pentagon, said Taipei had a real need for the submarines and there was now an opportunity to obtain them.
However, he said there was a “perception” within the US defense industry that “significant elements within the US government” did not want to support Taiwan over the acquisition of submarines.
He said that US defense industry leaders believed that Washington did not want them to offer any technical assistance or to be active in any part of the Taiwan domestic submarine program.
Stokes stressed that he did not “personally believe” that such a ban was in place.
“It would help if there were some public clarification, if there was a statement,” he said.
He said that US Congress should “start asking questions” and find out for sure if there had been some “purposeful discouragement to the US defense industry not to pursue assistance” on the Taiwanese submarine program.
“That would be worthwhile,” Stokes said.
Speaking at a Hudson Institute conference on the current state of US-Taiwan security relations, Stokes said that Taiwan’s request to buy US diesel-electric submarines had been frozen since 2007.
Now that Taiwan was planning to build its own submarines, he said it should be “inconceivable” that Washington would not grant export licenses for the technology needed.
“The US has failed to materially assist Taiwan in its long-standing and legitimate effort to protect itself from the threat of blockade from PRC [People’s Republic of China] submarines and surface ships,” Hudson Institute official and former US deputy undersecretary of the Navy Seth Cropsey said.
American Enterprise Institute director of Japan studies Michael Auslin told the conference that Washington was becoming “risk averse” at the very moment risk was increasing in Asia.
Hudson Institute senior fellow Michael Pillsbury said there was a “hidden history” of US-Taiwan relations that was still not known.
Pillsbury, former undersecretary of defense for policy planning under then-US president Ronald Reagan, said Taiwan had asked 12 times to buy F-16C/D jets without success.
“I maintain this is explained by the hidden history and the restraints that are on Taiwan,” he said.
Under secret agreements that were made when the US switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, Pillsbury said that selling short-range weapons systems, such as Apache helicopters and Hellfire missiles, was allowed. However, longer range systems, such as the F-16C/Ds, which could reach China with bombs, were not.
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