The budget for fiscal year 2019 to build a fleet of 60 missile-equipped 45-tonne fast-attack craft was yesterday cut by NT$200 million (US$6.48 million), from an initial NT$468 million, with lawmakers from across party lines saying that the navy should be more practical in its planning.
The funding cut came after a review of the navy’s budget by the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.
At the committee’s meeting, Navy Chief of Staff Vice Admiral Lee Tsung-hsiao (李宗孝) said that design and testing of the fast-attack craft would begin next year, while preparations to produce the first four would not begin until 2021.
The production of new ships should depend on current needs, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said.
The navy has yet to provide a prototype for testing and simulation as it did with the earlier Tuo Jiang-class corvette, Chiang said, adding that the navy should not propose budgets for mass production without a prototype for trials and environmental tests.
The navy cannot guarantee that the total cost to produce the 60 vessels would be capped at the planned NT$31.6 billion, as it has not performed design and testing, the committee said.
Asked by KMT Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) how the navy would staff the vessels, Lee said that it would undergo a structural adjustment of personnel.
Following the retirement of ships from the amphibious landing branch, as well as minesweepers, the navy would have an excess of personnel to crew the new vessels, he said.
Unlike the Guang Hua VI fast-attack missile boat, the new vessels would conduct missions in various sea zones, he added.
Mass production plans would only be approved after the navy has conducted testing, the committee said.
The Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts yesterday apologized for forbidding children from copying paintings by freehand drawing, saying it welcomes visitors to make sketches of paintings on drawing tablets or sketchpads. The museum issued the remark after a museumgoer nicknamed “Mickeyelk Gesner” on Thursday posted on Facebook that her son had been sketching a painting by Pablo Picasso on a tablet computer at the exhibition “Capturing the Moment” on Wednesday when a museum worker told him to stop drawing. “The staff told us, ‘Only taking photos is allowed. No copying. This is a rule,’” she quoted the worker as saying. Physician Lee Chia-yan
ACCESS DENIAL: Beijing would likely take formation in the Philippine Sea, outside Taipei’s missile range, while its forces on the east would be a deterrent to foreign aid China is increasingly likely to employ a strategy of anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) around Taiwan, which would use three carrier groups, a report from the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. When China’s third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, is completed next year, China would have three carriers, which would likely be used to surround Taiwan and implement an A2/AD strategy, it said, adding that efforts to strengthen China’s two other carriers — the Liaoning and the Shandong — appear to corroborate this. In the quarterly report, the council cited declassified documents from the Ministry of National Defense that categorized China’s carriers as
Two German warships are awaiting orders from Berlin to determine whether they would be the first German naval vessels in decades to pass through the Taiwan Strait next month, at the risk of stoking tensions with Beijing, a German commander said. While the US and other nations, including Canada, have sent warships through the narrow strait in recent weeks, it would be the German navy’s first passage through the Strait since 2002. China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, and says it has jurisdiction over the nearly 180km waterway that divides the two sides. Taiwan strongly objects to these claims, saying only its people
Former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley yesterday called for more international backing for Taiwan and a coordinated pushback against China’s claims over the nation. “The United States should elevate Taiwan on the world stage. You should no longer be silenced in global affairs,” Haley told an audience at the Ketagalan Forum, a Taipei conference focused on security issues in the Asia-Pacific region. She called for Taiwan to become a full member of the UN, even though it is being blocked by China from representation in international bodies. While the US does not formally recognize Taiwan, it is the nation's strongest