In the early 1990's, Dutch business interests sought permission to build submarines at the Cork Dockyard in Rushbrooke, County Cork, Ireland. However, state files released in December of 2022 show that the then Minister for Foreign Affairs David Andrews, feared that the export of military components from Ireland to Taiwan may invite the wrath of Beijing and he blocked the project to avoid any potential retaliation from the Chinese Communist Party.
Ireland wasn't the only country to fear economic and diplomatic threats from Beijing when it came to sales of submarines to Taiwan, and after many years of attempting to purchase submarines abroad, Taiwan decided to manufacture its own and launched a domestic submarine program in 2014.
On September 28th of 2023, Taiwan unveiled it first indigenously manufactured defense submarine called the Narwhal or Hai Kun, meaning Sea Monster in Mandarin Chinese.
In this episode of Perspectives with Neilo I met up with Guermantes Lailari who is a retired US Air Force Foreign Area Officer specializing in counterterrorism, irregular warfare and missile defense and is currently a visiting Scholar at Taiwan's National Chengchi University. He shared his insights on what is known about the technology of Taiwan's Sea Monster, how a submarine fleet improves Taiwan's defense capability as well as China's reaction to the launch and much more.
