In response to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP, 中國 共產黨) increased aggression and rhetoric towards Taiwan, the Taiwanese government passed a separate special military budget in 2021 to improve its defense industrial base, giving particular attention to its domestic missile production. Two years after implementing this budget, Taiwan’s missile production program has seen great success, with Taiwan meeting its missile production goals two years ahead of schedule. Producing missile platforms domestically yields several advantages for Taiwan—chiefly, faster delivery times and lower costs for weapons with comparable performance to American weapons systems.
Because of this, Taiwan is working to replace some US missile systems with its own indigenous weapons. However, while many of its indigenous missile platforms are comparable to American weapons, some systems need to be improved to provide more credible deterrence against the People’s Liberation Army (PLA, 人民解放軍).
The origins of the “Sea-Air Combat Power Improvement Plan Purchase Special Regulations” program
Since 2020, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has increased military provocations against Taiwan – most notably with large-scale naval blockading drills around the island every year since 2022. In response to PRC aggression, the Republic of China (ROC) government has made efforts to increase its defense capabilities by bolstering its weapons stockpiles. Taiwan has paid particular attention to its missile acquisitions, as they are the front line of defense against a potential PLA invasion.
To stock its arsenal, Taiwan has traditionally relied on purchasing US missiles through US foreign military sales (FMS). However, US International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and low US defense production capacity combine to make defense deliveries to Taiwan excruciatingly slow. While the United States is increasing production by opening new munitions facilities and streamlining the FMS process, the ever increasing global demand for American arms means weapons deliveries still take several years to complete. Currently, countries that order US missiles tend to wait between 18 and 29 months before they see their first deliveries. The weapons packages Taiwan ordered in 2019, which included 250 Stinger missiles, will likely not be completely delivered until at least 2026.
In response to slow US defense deliveries, the Taiwanese government announced its “Sea-Air Combat Power Improvement Plan Purchase Special Regulations” (制定海空戰力提升計畫採購特別條例) program in 2021 – a separate special defense budget of USD $7.4 billion to develop indigenously produced defense articles. The program particularly focuses on missile production, with approximately 64 percent of the total budget going towards indigenous missile programs. The budget, which spans 2022 to 2026, aims to enable the National Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST, 國家中山科學研究院)Taiwan’s primary arms manufacturer to produce more than 1,000 missiles a year by the budget’s end date.
Taiwan’s success in missile production
Developing a robust defense industrial base is difficult to undertake even for developed nations. However, Taiwan is a unique case. Unlike other countries, Taiwan mass produces many of the materials needed to build advanced weaponry like microchips and microelectronic components. Such components are often some of the greatest limiting factors countries face in missile production.
So far, the program has been a success and the NCSIST is on track to produce over 1,000 missile units by the end of this year – two years ahead of schedule. If the current projection holds, the NCSIST will increase its output this year by five times what it was in 2021. Much of this success can be attributed to NCSIST now being able to afford incorporating more automation in its production lines, which has greatly improved production efficiency. Indeed, increased automation has allowed the NCSIST to expand to 16 mass production lines for various missiles, including the Chien Hsiang (劍翔) suicide drone, the Wan Chien (萬劍) air-to-surface missile, the Hsiung Sheng (雄昇) surface-to-surface missile, the Tien Kung III (TK III, 天弓-3) air defense missile system, the Tien Chien II (天劍-2) air-to-air missile, and the Hsiung Feng III (HF III) (雄風) anti-ship missile.
While the special defense budget is playing a key role in increasing Taiwan’s indigenous missile production, this surge did not happen overnight. The NCSIST has developed and produced missiles for decades and has worked to increase its output for the past six years. In 2018, president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), seeing the need to beef up domestic missile production, directed the NCSIST to expedite and increase production for several missile systems. As part of this directive, the Tsai Administration ordered the NCSIST to develop a plan to streamline production over the next two years. With a plan for producing various missile platforms more efficiently in place, the NCSIST was able to hit the ground running once it got the requisite funding in 2022.
Taiwan’s domestic missile production has allowed it to continue expanding its defense capabilities despite US backlogs. Domestically produced missiles are faster to procure and do not require Taiwan to rely on the US FMS process, in which it must compete with other countries in desperate need of weapons. One production example is that of the Hsiung Feng missile: in 2022, the Ministry of National Defense of Taiwan (MND, 中華民國國防部) ordered 131 Hsiung Feng missiles from the NCSIST, which are on track to be completed by the end of this year. This is markedly fast in comparison to missiles bought through US FMS where, at best, only the first batch of munitions would arrive within that timeframe.
Domestically produced missiles also tend to be far cheaper to produce than ordering American missiles through FMS. It will cost the NCSIST less than USD $1.5 billion to produce 1,000 missiles this year. Most prominently, the list will include: 70 super-sonic Hsiung Feng III anti-ship missiles; 131 Hsiung Feng II anti-ship and Hsiung Sheng cruise missiles; 96 TK III anti-air missiles; 50 Wan Chien air-to-ground cruise missiles; 150 Tien Chien II missiles; and 48 Chien Hsiang attack drones. Compare those figures to the approximately USD $4.43 billion that Taiwan spent in 2020 on missile purchases from the United States, to include: 400 Harpoon Block II surface-launched missiles, 100 Harpoon coastal defense systems, 64 ATACMS, 135 Standoff Land Attack Missiles (SLAM-ER), 4 ATM-84H SLAM-ER Telemetry missiles, and training missiles, and Patriot missile life extension services.
Further, when looking at individual systems, Taiwanese-produced missile systems tend to be much more cost effective than similar American systems. The TK III and Patriot PAC-3 missile defense systems serve as a good example. The US-made Patriot system costs approximately USD $3.7 million per missile interceptor, and its 30-year life extension services cost about USD $620 million. However, according to Shu Hsiao-huang (舒孝煌), an associate research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR, 國防安全研究所) the top military think tank in Taiwan – the TK III system costs about one-sixth the cost of the Patriot system.
Indigenous systems are not only timelier and more economical than US systems, but they are also largely comparable to -and, in some ways, better – than American weapons. Again, the TK III system serves as a perfect example. Like the Patriot PAC-3 system, the TK III system is a mobile trailer-mounted missile defense system with anti-aircraft, cruise missile, short-range ballistic missile, and anti-radiation missile capabilities. While the TK III missile defense system performs roughly the same as the Patriot PAC-3 missile defense system, it travels almost twice the Patriot’s maximum speed, at a top speed of Mach 7, giving it greater range.
Because many of Taiwan’s indigenous systems are comparable to American weapons systems, the ROC is beginning to phase out certain US platforms and replace them with Taiwanese-made weapons. In October 2023, the MND announced that it would replace six of its aging joint TK II and US-made MIM-23 Hawk missile sites with TK III systems and create six additional TK III sites from scratch. The MND plans to complete the conversion to the TK III system by 2026.
Taiwan’s remaining shortcomings in missile production
While many of Taiwan’s indigenous systems are comparable to US systems, they are largely untested in combat. Additionally, some systems do not have the same stealth capabilities as American weapons. Taiwan’s premier long-range attack cruise missile, the Hsiung Feng IIE (HF IIE), boasts a range of up to 745 miles – enough to strike targets as far as Shanghai and Hong Kong. The HF IIE, however, is large and subsonic, making it easier for the PLA to detect and intercept. However, the NCSIST is currently working around this issue by developing the Yun Feng missile (雲峰), which will have a greater range than the HF IIE and will be supersonic, making it more difficult to shoot down. To better deter the PRC, Taiwan will need to continue to improve its missile technology to be less detectable to the PLA.
Recommendations
Because the special military budget has been so successful in increasing Taiwan’s missile production output, the ROC government should expand it to maintain current production rates beyond 2026. Doing so would allow Taiwan to rapidly stockpile munitions it would quickly use up and may have difficulty producing during wartime.
To further improve its production, Taiwan should take further steps to secure its supply chains. Currently, like every other country in the world, Taiwan relies almost exclusively on China for rare earths like gallium and germanium that are critical to missile production and other technologies. To its credit, the Taiwanese government has made efforts to reduce reliance on China through rare earth recycling programs. However, this is not enough to sustain Taiwan’s operations long-term. To further lessen its reliance on China, Taiwan should invest in other foreign rare earth mining startups.
A good place to start would be the United States. The US government is actively trying to build up its domestic rare earth production. It has done this by invoking Title III of the Defense Production Act multiple times, and reducing timeframes for mining operations by creating hard two-year deadlines for government agencies to complete environmental reviews and issue a permit. However, despite these actions, high capital costs make it difficult for US mining companies to get off the ground. To alleviate these capital costs and increase demand for US production, Taiwan could invest in US rare earth mining companies. Such an investment would be mutually beneficial both for the US economy and defense industrial base, as well as Taiwan’s defense supply chain security.
The main point: Taiwan’s domestic missile production program has been largely successful. Unlike other countries, Taiwan possesses many of the components needed to both design and mass produce advanced missile platforms. In the face of a clogged US defense industrial base, Taiwan’s unique situation allows it to provide for its own defense needs for a fraction of the cost, and without having to compete with other countries vying for US FMS. To better ensure Taiwan can continue to address its own national security needs, the ROC government should continue to fund the NCSIST to mass produce missiles and other defense supplies beyond the 2026 expiration date.
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