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Navy to embark on submarine program →
This reasonably detailed article (make sure you read both pages) discusses Taiwan’s attempts to acquire or build submarines. Earlier today I spotted another Taiwanese submarine article in the daily e-mail that I get from Global Security, which was a short and not very detailed piece by Elaine Hou, Taiwan Navy does not confirm report on sources of submarines. The above-linked article to the Taipei Times is much better. I found this through a link from Zachary Keck’s Twitter feed.
If there were any doubt previously about the answer to the question — Will the “strategic pivot” to Asia face toward or away from Taiwan? — this piece in the Taipei Times by J. Michael Cole certainly suggests that Taiwan will be largely going it alone against the continental behemoth of the PRC. Not only will the US not be selling Taiwan any submarines, but it is apparently pressuring major defense contractors not to become involved in any indigenous Taiwanese submarine construction program.
Is the PRC now so big and so scary that the other nation-states of the world have to stand to one side and Taiwan becomes ever more marginalized in the international community? I am reminded of Cold War scenarios in which it was suggested that the Soviet empire would eventually get so big and scary that US would simply acquiesce to Soviet domination of the whole of Europe, without a fight.
Obviously, this scenario did not come to pass, but China is not the Soviet Union, and Taiwan is not Western Europe. There are limits to any analogy. So today I will say of the Taiwanese as I said yesterday of the Yemenis: I wish them well, but I am worried for them.
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