2011-06-01 (China Military News cited from atimes.com and written by Jens Kastner ) -- To help speed up a long-awaited arms deal, Taiwan has decided to accept a United States proposal that Taipei buy four diesel-electric submarines instead of eight, according to local media. The story is difficult to believe as submarines are the last weapons system Beijing wants the Taiwanese to get their hands on.

Almost immediately after People's Liberation Army (PLA) Chief of General Staff Chen Bingde ended his recent high-profile visit to the US, Taiwan's Kuomintang (KMT) government-leaning China Times carried a report according to which Washington proposed and Taipei accepted a watered down arms deal.

The transaction in question concerns the sale of eight conventional submarines to Taiwan, approved by then-US president George W Bush in 2001. As the US stopped building diesel-electric subs decades ago, and European countries still producing them fear reprisals from Beijing, the deal has been in limbo pretty much ever since it was approved.

But now, at least according to the China Times, citing anonymous sources from within the Taiwanese military and ones in the US, the solution has been found, with Taipei settling for half the number. Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND) rejected the story while an insider Asia Times Online talked to senses a political feint, thought up by the Taiwanese government under pressure.

"The maximum Beijing would possibly tolerate is the sale of F-16C/D tactical fighter jets to Taipei, but submarines would be crossing the red line by far," said Wang Jyh-perng, a reserve captain of the Taiwan Navy and associate research fellow at the Association for Managing Defense and Strategies who was once involved in the Taiwanese navy's submarine procurement planning. "As national defense is the weakest aspect of President Ma Ying-jeou's performance, he possibly thought up the 'four subs concept' to test the waters, wanting to see how US, Taiwanese public, domestic opposition and even Beijing react.''

With presidential elections to be held in January 2012 approaching, opinion polls show Ma notoriously on par with his contender, the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Tsai Ing-wen. This is despite his Beijing-friendly cross-strait policy obviously having a very positive impact on the island's economy.

Last year, gross domestic product grew by over 10%, and unemployment has just dropped to its lowest in 31 months. Ma's major problem is the tedious topic of national sovereignty. Taiwanese across the specter are turned off by news that a rapidly growing number of international institutions label Taiwan as a province of China, and also by indicators, plentiful in recent months, that Ma is letting the island's armed forces wither.

To cater to these public sentiments, Ma has been persistently requesting the US to go ahead with sales of F-16C/Ds as well as other items, desperate to present some breakthrough related to defense and sovereignty before the elections.

On the rumor front, apart from the sub story, it is whispered that Ma plans to delay payment for US weapons to make good on his 2008 campaign pledge to establish an all-volunteer military more capable than the current one made up of conscripts and also that intelligence gathering will soon be handled by the military itself instead the National Security Bureau (NSB).