(Reuters) – Taiwan will buy as many as 400 U.S. land-launched Harpoon missiles in the face of rising threat from China, Bloomberg News reported on Monday, citing a trade group’s leader and people familiar with the issue.
A contract with Boeing that the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command issued on Taiwan’s behalf marks the first time the island will get the mobile, land-launched version, the report said citing Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the US-Taiwan Business Council. It previously purchased the ship-launched version.
This month, U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy hosted Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in California and stressed the need to accelerate arms deliveries to Taiwan in the face of rising threats from China.
After the meeting, Mike Gallagher, Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, said he would like to look for ways to get Harpoon anti-ship missiles to Taiwan ahead of those scheduled to go to Saudi Arabia.
In 2020, Taiwan said that it planned to buy land-based Boeing-made Harpoon anti-ship missiles as part of its military modernization efforts.
(Reporting by Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Mark Porter and Josie Kao)
