Taiwan To Buy 400 US Anti-Ship Missiles, Announced As China Conducts “Major” Military Drills

Taiwan is set to purchase up to 400 land-launched Harpoon missiles in order to repel a future Chinese invasion, according to the president of the US-Taiwan Business Council Rupert Hammond-Chambers, speaking to Bloomberg.

While Harpoons have previously been purchased by Taiwan for deployment on warships, this marks a first time acquisition of the mobile, land-launched version.

Via Naval News: Land-based Harpoon missile launched from a truck trailer. 

Per Bloomberg, “The Pentagon announced the $1.7 billion contract with Boeing on April 7 but made no mention of Taiwan as the purchaser” at a moment of tense US-China relations due to ratcheting Chinese military drills around the self-ruled island. 

As the Monday report additionally reviews: 

The Harpoon contract has been cited by members of Congress including Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as part of as much $19 billion in “backlogged US sales to Taiwan that they say need to accelerated. In addition to the Harpoon, the list includes the F-16 Block 70 fighter, the MK-48 torpedo, the M109A6 Paladin self-propelled howitzer and the Stinger missile.

Additionally the US-Taiwan Business Council has now confirmed the Harpoon is to be transferred. 

Meanwhile China’s military announced on the same day it is conducting “major military activity” in the Yellow Sea in waters off the coast of Shandong province.

While these drills were only scheduled for a few hours, they follow a series of major days-long encircling drills threatening Taiwan, which have been going off-and-on since earlier this month Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen met with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California’s Simi Valley, a meeting which Beijing warned strongly against.