Submarine program remains on track despite resignation: defense minister

Taiwan’s Indigenous Submarine Program would remain on track, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said yesterday, after the head of the program resigned due to what he said were unfair attacks against him and the military.

Taiwan has made the submarine program a key part of an ambitious project to modernize its armed forces as Beijing stages almost daily military exercises.

Taiwan unveiled the first of eight new submarines in September last year, although it is not expected to enter service until next year.

In a statement late on Tuesday, Admiral Huang Shu-kuang (黃曙光) said that he had resigned as head of the submarine project, as he and the program had been subjected to unfair attacks from people he did not name.

Huang told Reuters that the submarine task force, which includes the navy and shipbuilder CSBC Corp, would continue to operate despite his departure.

“It’s impossible that the team will be disbanded due to one man’s departure,” he said.

Chiu said that Huang is a “conscientious” person, but “members of the task force are all on active duty and can work for a long time. It will not change due to a single personnel change.”

Huang had previously described the submarines as a “strategic deterrent” that could help maintain Taiwan’s “lifeline” to the Pacific by keeping ports along the east coast open.

Taiwan hopes to deploy at least two domestic submarines by 2027, and possibly equip later models with anti-ship missiles.

Chiu yesterday also defended the submarine program and said claims by local media that the costs would soar were “unfair.”

The navy has estimated the cost of constructing the seven vessels over 15 years to be more than NT$280 billion (US$8.62 billion), or about NT$40 billion per vessel.

That is higher than the prototype Hai Kun, which cost about NT$31.2 billion, local media reported.

When asked about the issue by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee yesterday, Chiu said the estimate not only included construction costs, but also expenses related to classified items.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Jen (黃仁) also questioned why the cost was expected to rise, quoting Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, who previously said the cost of constructing each of the seven vessels was expected to fall to about 80 percent of the price of building the prototype.

Chiu said that the ministry plans to add “certain equipment” to the subs built after the prototype as it was felt the first vessel was “not necessarily sufficiently equipped.”

Furthermore, NT$280 billion was just an estimate as the budget proposal had not yet been submitted, he said, adding that taking that number and simply dividing it by seven was an “unfair” method of calculating the costs.