US Sikorsky anti-submarine helicopters ‘too expensive for Taiwan’

Island was going to purchase 12 of the aircraft but defence minister says the price is too high
Delivery of Stinger missiles delayed because of demand from Ukraine

Taiwan

Reuters

Published: 12:44pm, 5 May 2022

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Taiwan signalled on Thursday that it had abandoned a plan to buy advanced new anti-submarine warfare helicopters from the United States, saying they were too expensive.

Taiwan had earlier said it was planning to buy 12 MH-60R anti-submarine helicopters, made by Lockheed Martin Corp unit Sikorsky, but Taiwanese media reported that the United States had rejected the sale as not being in line with the island’s needs.

Asked in the legislature about recent changes to Taiwan’s purchases of new US weapons, Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng mentioned the helicopter case first.

“The price is too high, beyond the scope of our country’s ability,” he said.

Two other arms purchases have also been delayed – M109A6 medium self-propelled howitzer artillery systems, and mobile Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.

The Raytheon Technologies’ Stingers are in hot demand in Ukraine, where they have been used against Russian aircraft, but US supplies have shrunk and producing more of the anti-aircraft weapons faces significant hurdles.

Chiu said they had already signed the contract for the Stingers and paid for them, and they would press the United States to deliver them.

“We don’t view arms sales as a trifling matter, and we have backup plans,” he added, without elaborating.

02:20

Heightened tensions in Taiwan amid Russian invasion of Ukraine

Taiwan says the United States has offered it alternatives to the M109A6, including truck-based rocket launchers made by Lockheed Martin called the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS.

Chiu said they were still considering their options on that.

He also said there had been many “enemy ships” in the waters around Taiwan, which amounted to an “in principle stand-off” with Taiwanese forces.

Eight mainland Chinese naval vessels, including the aircraft carrier the Liaoning, passed between islands in Japan’s southern Okinawa chain on Monday, an area that is to Taiwan’s northeast.

Taiwan, claimed by mainland China as its own territory, is undertaking a military modernisation programme to improve its capacity to fend off a Chinese attack, including with precision weapons like missiles.

President Tsai Ing-wen has championed the concept of “asymmetric warfare”, which involves developing hi-tech, highly mobile weapons that are hard to destroy and can deliver precision attacks.

US officials have been pushing Taiwan to modernise its military so it can become a “porcupine”, hard for Beijing to attack.

Mainland China has been ramping up its own military modernisation and pressure against Taiwan as it seeks to force the democratically governed island to accept Beijing’s rule.