Taiwan Eyes New Defense Tech Wing Similar To US DARPA

Taiwan will establish a new defense technology department with an allocation of NT $3 billion on the lines of US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to boost indigenous capabilities.

The new military department, to be officially established next January, will be responsible for developing "groundbreaking" and "innovative" technologies for national defense and to drive development of the industry, Col. Yu Yu-tang of the Defense Ministry's Resource Planning Division was quoted as saying by Chinapost last week.

During his address at the annual U.S.-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference in Williamsburg, Virginia on Oct. 3, Lee said Taiwan intended to establish a "Taiwan DARPA" to accelerate technology development and application, and to integrate resources across government agencies.

"Resources across industry, government, academia and research entities will be integrated to ensure a steady supply of innovative ideas and quality manpower," he said in his speech.

The move will also help to retain local defense technology talent in Taiwan and to boost economic growth in the country, he added.

The ministry will introduce civilian experts as professional managers to work in the soon-to-be-launched department.

Twenty-three experienced specialists in defense technology and industry with PhD degrees are expected to be recruited to the government agency before October 2017, he added.

In its initial stage, the ministry plans to allocate NT$3 billion to the initiative.

According to Yu, the new defense technology section will initially be launched as an expansion of the Resource Planning Division.

The department will later grow into a discrete unit listed directly under the Defense Ministry, he said.

Yu also said that the new project had no connection to an arms firm called "Taiwan Goal", which was launched by the former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government in 2008.

Taiwan Goal was a private company founded in 2008 to handle arms sales.

At the time, the DPP government stressed that the company was intended to promote Taiwan's defense industry, yet its funding was criticized by Kuomintang lawmakers for a lack of transparency and for being "prone to scandal."

Amid criticism, the former DPP government announced the company's closure.