Taipei Times Reporting US Will Build Submarines For Taiwan

The Taipei Times ran an article on Monday regarding a meeting last week in Washington. Because stories like this tend to disappear quickly (in fact the story is currently not cached on US google as I write this), I'm posting in full. You decide.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Shuai Hua-min (帥化民) said on Saturday US officials have told a delegation of Taiwanese legislators that Washington will go ahead with the sale of diesel-powered submarines to Taiwan even if the Democrats win next year's US presidential election.

The delegation was also told that four US companies that intend to participate in the bid have found European manufacturers to cooperate with, Shuai said.

In a visit arranged by the Ministry of Defense, Shuai, KMT Legislator Su Chi (蘇起), and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Mark Ho (何敏豪) arrived in Washington on Wednesday.

The delegation also visited companies that intend to participate in the bid for the diesel-powered submarines.

Shuai said his first priority in discussions with US officials was to ascertain whether the sale would go ahead even if the Democrats won next year's presidential election. Both military and state department officials said there was not a great possibility there would be any change of policy, Shuai said.

His second priority was to confirm that there would be no reductions in the arms systems sold, he said. US officials said this would depend on the state of cross-strait relations.

Will this happen? Hard to tell, according to the Asia Times the US State Dept is busy blocking the sales of P-3Cs and PAC-3 missiles to Taiwan. Considering submarines would be a much larger escalation than ASW aircraft and AAW missiles, both of which are mostly defensive systems, I remain skeptical.