Taiwan's air defence missile chief Liu Hsiao-tang to retire as succession race opens

Lieutenant General Liu Hsiao-tang, commander of the Republic of China Air Force Air Defense and Missile Command, will retire at the end of November after reaching the statutory age limit for his rank, according to reports published on Nov. 6 and Nov. 7 by the Liberty Times, the United Daily News, the China Times and ETtoday.

The command controls Taiwan's ground-based Patriot and Tien Kung surface-to-air missile units as well as the Hsiung Sheng missiles intended to hit targets at their source. The Liberty Times and the United Daily News both estimated that the active missile inventory under the command now exceeds 1,000 rounds.

No successor has been announced. The Liberty Times reported that the defence ministry and senior national security officials were making their final assessment and that the choice would be revealed at the end of the month. Both the Liberty Times and the United Daily News said the open question is whether the post goes to a general from the fighter pilot track or one who rose through the air defence branch.

The United Daily News and the China Times reported that the command will also carry the integration work for an automated air defence engagement system under the planned T-Dome, or Taiwan Shield, programme, which raises the stakes of the appointment.

The Liberty Times said Liu's departure continues an unusual run in which senior Air Force lieutenant generals have retired for four consecutive months. It noted that Lieutenant General Lu Chien-chung, the defence ministry's former inspector general, stepped down at the end of October.

Liu graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1988, according to the United Daily News. He later served as chief of staff, deputy commander and then commander of the Air Force air defence artillery command, as president of the Air Command and Staff College at National Defense University, and as head of the air defence and information warfare division in the General Staff's operations and planning office, the United Daily News and the China Times reported. The Liberty Times added that as a colonel he led the 951st Brigade, which was responsible for air defence over the capital and northern Taiwan.

He was one of five survivors of the Jan. 2, 2020 Black Hawk helicopter crash that killed Chief of the General Staff Shen Yi-ming and seven other officers. The reports said that despite serious injuries he relayed the situation at the crash site and called for help. He was promoted to lieutenant general in 2022 and returned to lead the Air Defense and Missile Command.

All four outlets credited his tenure with the steady induction of new domestically built missiles and with a low-profile deployment, carried out with the United States, of a Patriot PAC-3 unit to Palau in the second island chain for a live-fire evaluation in which every target was intercepted.

The Liberty Times also reported that during his roughly four and a half years in charge, PAC-2 and PAC-3 missiles underwent re-certification test firings in Taiwan, and air defence units shifted from a posture centred on protecting Taipei to mobile deployment across the island. It said annual production of the Tien Kung III by the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology doubled to 96 missiles in that period, and that when a PAC-2 self-destructed in flight during a 2025 precision firing exercise, the crew fired a follow-up round within a minute and hit the target.

The appointment matters because the next commander will inherit both Taiwan's largest inventory of air defence missiles and the job of tying them into the automated T-Dome network, a system meant to knit together the Patriot and Tien Kung batteries the command already runs.