Anti-submarine patrol aircraft attached to a naval aviation regiment under the PLA Southern Theater Command takes off for a round-the-clock training exercise in early July, 2023. (eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Qin Qianjiang)

The island of Taiwan's submarine deployment plan to block the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) from entering the Pacific Ocean is daydreaming, experts said on Monday, ahead of the scheduled launch of the island's first "indigenous" submarine later this week.

A naming and launch ceremony for the submarine Hai Kun will be held in Kaohsiung on Thursday, media on the island reported on Monday.

The submarine is scheduled to be delivered to the island's naval force in 2024, said Huang Shu-kuang, the leader of the island's "indigenous" submarine program, who also hopes to finish building three "indigenous" submarines  by 2025 and four by 2027, according to the report.

Huang claimed that the island's submarine forces will be deployed to the island's southwestern, southeastern, eastern waters and waters between Suao and Japan's Yonaguni Island, with the goal of cutting off PLA forces' access to the Pacific Ocean from the first island chain, so the PLA cannot encircle the island of Taiwan.

The plan is just an illusion of the island attempting to resist reunification by force, a Beijing-based military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Monday.

The PLA has already constructed a multidimensional anti-submarine network all around the island of Taiwan, which includes Y-8 fixed wing anti-submarine patrol aircraft and Z-9 vessel-borne anti-submarine helicopters in the air, anti-submarine-capable corvettes, frigates and destroyers on the sea surface, as well as submarines underwater, the expert said.

In their almost daily routine exercises around the island, some of these PLA anti-submarine forces are frequently spotted by the island of Taiwan.

If a conflict breaks out, the island's submarines will be easily detected and dealt with by the PLA, and they will pose only limited threats, the expert said, noting that the true potential targets of the PLA are submarines from external interference forces such as the US and Japan.

Observers also question the technical capabilities of the submarine that the island claimed to be  "self developed," which uses a number of foreign technologies in combat systems and weapons, like the MK-48 heavyweight torpedoes the island purchased from the US.

An assembled submarine using imported technologies may face incompatibilities, especially as the island does not have much experience in building submarines on its own, analysts said, who questioned if the island's submarine can enter service without encountering issues.