Taiwan’s Arms Procurement Policymaking in Transition: The Kidds Acquisition Controversy.

Taiwan has become one of the major weapons importers in the past ten years and is likely to continue to be so for the foreseeable future. Constrained by an inadequate military technology base and increasing threats from China?s rapid arms upgrading, Taiwan?s primary approach to maintaining its defensive capability has become the acquisition of weapon systems from abroad, especially from the United States. However, recent open policy debates on arms procurement have exposed Taiwan?s longstanding problems in relation to the legitimacy of procurement policy making, which in turn has delayed weapon acquisition process. This paper closely examines Taiwan?s policy process in relation to the purchase of Kidd-class destroyers from the US Navy, which provoked unprecedented and heated domestic debates and disputes between the US and Taiwanese governments. Drawing on the notions of science and technology studies, this article analyzes the evolution and nature of the technology controversy in the case of the acquisition of the Kidd destroyers and in the context of Taiwan?s democratizing policy process. It argues that the technological rhetoric taken up by policy actors for policy advocacy is often not as rational and accurate as it appears. In fact, military professional judgments and technological rhetoric in the policy process tend to be manipulated and fluid. It is therefore found that Taiwan?s current arms procurement decision, which is almost initiated and dominated by the military services and their own assessments, has failed to gain appropriate legitimacy. In the initial stage of the acquisition of Kidd destroyers, the military proposal approved by the US left no alternative for domestic policy deliberation. The pressure of the acquisition schedule and legislative scrutiny easily drove the military to set the accomplishment of arms deal as a goal without carefully contemplating the accountability of internal assessments and policy alternatives. The present paper suggests that legislative deliberation should be applied to the early phrase of Taiwan?s procurement policy-making, so that alternative solutions and measures can be discussed and analyzed. The research also points to the need for the US, as a major supplier of arms to Taiwan, to pay more attention to and have more patience with Taiwan?s domestic response to weapons offers so as to maintain American long-term interests in the region. Given the growing number of civilian policy actors in the area of Taiwan?s defence policy, an acquisition process cannot be streamlined unless its policy legitimacy is secured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]