Taiwan and Project Diving Dragon

It was a report that sounded bizarre on its face: A secret Taiwan navy delegation visits Russia under the cover of a commercial delegation, ostensibly to buy icebreakers but actually to try to acquire diesel submarines.

The story, in the Chinese-language Next Magazine, was immediately denied by the Taiwanese military with two successive press conferences, and the odds are very long that the Russians would antagonize Beijing by selling its breakaway island province submarines or the technology to make them.

But Taiwan’s navy has long been trying to get its hands on diesel submarines, and in fact the story may not be so far-fetched, defense specialists say.

Read more