TAIPEI (Reuters) -&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;is&nbsp;looking&nbsp;to&nbsp;buy&nbsp;National Advanced Surface-to-Air&nbsp;Missile&nbsp;Systems, or&nbsp;NASAMS,&nbsp;from&nbsp;the United States to upgrade its&nbsp;air&nbsp;defence&nbsp;capabilities having seen how well they work in Ukraine, the island's&nbsp;defence&nbsp;minister said on Tuesday.
China, which claims&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;as its own territory, has stepped up military and political pressure over the past three years to try to force the democratically governed island to accept Beijing's rule.
NASAMS&nbsp;have been provided by the United States for&nbsp;use in Ukraine, with U.S. officials saying they have had a 100% success rate in intercepting Russian missiles.
The&nbsp;system, developed and built by Raytheon Technologies and Norway's Kongsberg Gruppen is a short- to medium-range ground-based&nbsp;air&nbsp;defence&nbsp;system&nbsp;that protects against drone, missile, and&nbsp;aircraft attack, which both Canada and Lithuania have also bought, or are&nbsp;buying for Ukraine.
Asked on the sidelines of parliament about&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;buying&nbsp;NASAMS,&nbsp;Defence&nbsp;Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said "certainly" there was a proposal to get them.
"This work must be done in accordance with the enemy situation," he said. "We have seen&nbsp;from&nbsp;the Russia-Ukraine war that these weapons definitely have good performance."
However,&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;has not received any official notification&nbsp;from&nbsp;the U.S. that they will sell&nbsp;NASAMS&nbsp;to Taipei, Chiu said.
"But we need this work to be done as soon as possible."
The U.S.,&nbsp;Taiwan's main foreign source of weapons, formally makes notifications to the island about the arms Washington is willing to sell.
The U.S. is bound by law to provide&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;with the means to defend itself, despite a lack of formal diplomatic relations. China routinely denounces such arms sales.
Taiwan's military has been paying close attention to the war in Ukraine for lessons on defending against a much larger opponent, for example by the&nbsp;use of drones.
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(Reporting by Roger Tung and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Sharon Singleton)

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Taiwan says looking to buy NASAMS air defence system from US