(Reuters photo)TAIPEI - Taiwan plans to build eight submarines to bolster its current fleet of four ageing foreign-built vessels, a senior Taiwanese navy official said on Wednesday. Taiwan's submarine project comes in the middle of a four-year design contract phase budgeted at T$3 billion (3.4 trillion baht; $98.69 million) that began in 2016. Lee's comments come ahead of the first meeting between leaders of the United States and China this week that Taipei has fretted could harm its interest. The United States is obligated by US law to help Taiwan defend itself, but its arms sales to Taiwan anger Beijing and have slowed down the pace of sales, defence experts said. Taiwan and the United States, its sole arms supplier, are currently engaged in fresh arms sales talks.

Source: Bangkok Post April 05, 2017 20:03 UTC