Taiwan readies prototype of first indigenous submarine

In 2019, Taiwanese investigative journalist Tsai Han-shun found that Gavron is a shell company that had originally been registered in the UK as a beverage and tobacco retail company, but went out of business in 2016, and was then revived as a Gibraltar-registered firm.

Tsai tied Gavron to Andrew Wang, a notorious arms broker for the French defense giant Thomson-CSF, who was the main protagonist in Taiwan’s massive Lafayette frigate scandal in the 1990s. French officials were said to have paid as much as US$500 million in bribes to officials both in Taiwan and China to facilitate the Taiwan navy’s procurement of the French-made frigates. Wang is said to have died in 2015 at age 86 although some believe he faked his death to avoid prosecution. An Asia Sentinel query conducted in 2018 found that Gavron has sought to recruit its team of Kaohsiung-based experts in “submarine project integration” openly through the online recruitment website www.eurojobs.com.

Nevertheless, Taiwan’s navy will have to accept risks, said the US-based James R Holmes, a professor and Taiwan expert at the US Naval War College. The lack of air-independent propulsion, if true, would not necessarily be a fatal setback once all eight boats are in the inventory, Holmes said.

“The Taiwan Strait, just offshore, will presumably be their main patrol ground, so when the navy has enough subs for rotation, boats could rotate out for short patrols and return to port rather than risking detection by coming up to snorkel,” Holmes told Asia Sentinel. “The boats will still be a net benefit to Taiwan’s defense, and if the Taiwanese are smart, they will station them in offbeat places around the island’s periphery. I am assuming these are small boats that could be accommodated by a multitude of small harbors.”