Taiwan plans to use a domestically developed missile defense shield instead of U.S. Patriot anti-missile systems, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 12).

The low-altitude missile defense system, called ATBM, is scheduled for installation by 2005, the Taiwanese newspaper Liberty Times reported, according to Agence France-Presse.  The system, which will help defend central and southern Taiwan, will take 10 years to install and cost $8.7 billion, according to former Premier Tang Fei.

The ATBM system uses phased array radars similar to those installed on U.S. Navy Aegis-class destroyers, said Chao Yao-ming, an official at the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, which has developed the ATBM system. 

The ATBM system has been chosen over the U.S. Patriot III, which could have taken a long time to be integrated into Taiwan’s defenses, the Times reported.  “That’s why the Patriot weaponry was not on the arms shopping list Taipei presented Washington this year,” said a Taiwanese military official (Agence France-Presse, Dec. 16).

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