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Arms makers drool over Taiwanâs multi-billion-dollar arms spending spree
The Taiwanese arenât standing still.EFL Military equipment firms from the United States led the charge at an exhibition which opened here Thursday to get a slice of the multi-billion-dollar arms spending spree Taiwan is set to embark on over the next decade. Taiwan is set to speed up a 10-year arms buying spree worth 700 billion Taiwan dollars (20.33 billion US dollars) as the island attempts to rival Chinaâs military modernization efforts. On the Taiwan militaryâs shopping list are eight conventional submarines, long-range early warning radar systems and Patriot PAC-3 anti-missile systems. Taiwan has deployed three batteries of PAC-2 Plus anti-missile weaponry to defend the populous Greater Taipei area, but Taiwanese government has decided to add more advanced PAC-3 to its arms inventory. In a report released this month, the Pentagon warned that Chinaâs most immediate threat to Taiwan is a force of 450 short-range ballistic missiles in the Nanjing Military Region across the Taiwan straits from Taipei. 8 conventional subs. Now that would be very interesting. But my concern is that technologies sent to Tawain would eventually end up in Mainland China. Whatâs the standard line on this concern ? Posted by: Domingo 2003-08-14 |
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