New | Taiwan allocates NT$3 billion budget to build its own submarines

Taiwan has allocated NT$3 billion (HK$714 million) over four years, beginning next year, to launch a long-awaited programme for the island to build its own diesel-electric submarines.

The expected allocation is the first for a plan that has been talked about since the early 2000s, when a deal with the United States for eight diesel-electric submarines was bogged down because of technical and political constraints.

The spending was set out in the defence ministry’s budget for 2016.

The plan comes as other navies in the region expand their submarine fleets in part to create a strategic deterrent against mainland China’s growing naval assertiveness in Asian waters.

Taiwan has four ageing submarines, including two that date to the second world war, although its military is otherwise considered generally modern.

Mainland China has about 70 submarines, along with dozens of surface ships and a refurbished aircraft carrier. China sees self-ruled Taiwan as a renegade province and has never renounced the use of force to take back the island.

Critical to Taiwan’s indigenous submarine programme is the transfer from the US or other Western countries of submarine-manufacturing technology.