Taiwan is ramping up missile production in the face of a rising threat from China.
Taiwan will deliver a record high of more than 1,000 indigenous missiles next year amid rising tensions with China, defense sources told Taiwanese media over the weekend.
The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), Taiwan’s main domestic arms manufacturer, is producing the missiles as part of its Sea-Air Combat Improvement Plan, which has a special budget of NT$228.9 billion ($7.4 billion) from 2022 to 2026.
“Countries such as the U.S., Japan and China are paying attention to the combat power of Taiwan’s missile forces,” a defense source told The Taipei Times.
Among the types of missiles to be delivered in the next few years will be mobile coastal defense cruise missiles, an air defense system, the Wan Chien air-to-ground missile system and the Hsiung Feng II-E (HF-2E) land attack cruise missile system. The Wan Chien system will be completed next year and the HF-2E in 2025.
Carried by Taiwan’s F-CK-1 Ching Kuo Indigenous Defense Fighter, the Wan Chien is a subsonic cruise missile designed for suppression attacks on Chinese airfields, ports, missile sites, and radar positions. Thanks to its 240-km (149-mi.) range, the Wan Chien can be launched from beyond the range of most air defense systems deployed on China’s southeastern seaboard.
The HF-2E is one of Taiwan’s longest range missiles and the only one of the Hsiung Feng cruise missiles designed for land attack missions. With a reported history of more than 20 years, the HF-2E was likely developed to allow Taiwan to hit distant targets in China. It has an estimated range of up to 1,200 km (746 mi.), which could strike the city of Qingdao in Shandong Province on China’s east coast or Wuhan in central Hubei Province.
To be sure, delivery of 1,000 missiles in 2024 is an ambitious target, even for a manufacturing powerhouse like Taiwan. Ian Williams, deputy director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), tells Aviation Week that the figure probably includes long-range cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, air-to-ground, surface-to-air and perhaps smaller short-range Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (Manpads).
“I could see getting to 1,000 if they include all of the above and have strong supply chains. The availability of microelectronic components is usually one of the biggest limiting factors, but Taiwan has a strong domestic base for these subcomponents,” Williams says.
In the past, when it had less acrimonious relations with China, the U.S. had deep reservations about supporting any strike capability that could be perceived as offensive for Taiwan because Washington felt it might provoke Beijing’s ire. In fact, Washington initially objected to the HF-2E program, according to CSIS. But Taiwan felt the longer range missiles were important for its defense and carried on with the program.
In February, the Taiwanese military tested an extended range cruise missile believed to be the latest version of the HF-2E, the South China Morning Post reported.
Taiwan is ramping up missile production in the face of the most intense military pressure it has faced from China since the Cold War, when Chinese and Taiwanese forces occasionally clashed.
On June 24, the Taiwanese government said Chinese fighter jets approached the outer boundary of Taiwan’s 24-nm contiguous zone. Under international law, “a coastal state in its contiguous zone may exercise the control necessary to prevent the infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations within its territory or territorial sea, and punish infringement of those laws and regulations committed within its territory or territorial sea,” according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Taiwan’s territorial space is 12 nm from its coast.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) said in March that Taiwan would be “forced to respond” if Chinese aircraft and vessels were to “come near or enter the nation’s airspace and territorial waters, even if they are in disputed areas.”
It is unclear how frequently such Chinese military activity occurs.
But Fu Qianshao, a retired People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “equipment expert,” told The South China Morning Post in a June 26 report that Chinese warplanes nearing the 24-mi. nautical zone “is not unusual.” During then-U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) visit to Taiwan last August, PLA fighters flew as close as 12 nm from Taiwan, he added–though Taiwan’s government did not say so at the time.
Maj. Gen. Lin Wen-huang, who supervises planning at Taiwan’s MND, warned Beijing on June 27 that Taiwan would retaliate if the PLA continued to “force their way into our territorial airspace and seas,” according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency. Taiwan “will actively strike back to safeguard national security,” he said.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan congressional delegation led by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) arrived in Taiwan on June 26 for a three-day visit. The delegation includes nine members of the House of Representatives and is one of the largest from the U.S. to visit Taiwan in recent years.
Ahead of a closed-door meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen and other senior Taiwanese officials on June 27, Rogers told her that the delegation’s support for Taiwan is “bipartisan” and “unwavering.”
The delegation’s Taiwan trip follows the House Armed Services Committee passing the bill under the National Defense Authorization Act required to legislate the U.S. national defense policy and budget for fiscal 2024. The bill includes provisions supporting U.S. military cooperation with Taiwan.
