Opportunities for Taiwan’s Security, the Indigenous Submarine, and U.S. Policy

The security relationship between Taiwan and the United States has endured decades. The United States remains committed to Taiwan’s security and has demonstrated as much with the sale of military equipment and other tangible support, as provisioned under the Taiwan Relations Act. Today, the People’s Republic of China continues to flex its growing diplomatic, political, and military muscle in the region, accelerating the development of its naval forces, including surface, subsurface, and amphibious capabilities. These present a challenge not only to Taiwan’s security, but also to the standing of the U.S. Navy in the western Pacific. To adapt, Taiwan has initiated its own programs, including the development of domestically designed and built submarines. On June 22, Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower hosted a distinguished panel of experts to examine the evolving security relationship. The discussion looked at the PRC’s naval and amphibious threats to the balance of power in the