Online shopping "second-hand goods" to manufacture anti-aircraft missiles to ensure Taiwan's "safety and security", a "cosmetics seller" has long contracted a large purchase order for Taiwan's defense army ...
Taiwan media today exposed a major military purchase fraud case, which shook the island.
This incident involved Taiwan's "Chinese Academy of Sciences," the island's highest military scientific research institution, as well as the "Tiangong" missile, one of the main missiles of Taiwan's air defense forces. But some of these clumsy and even ridiculous details feel absurd.
There are early signs of this malpractice.
The manufacturers involved in the case can get defense orders by relying on such a low-level "deception", which is not once or twice on the island.
The DPP authorities spent huge sums of money on the military in a vain attempt to increase their military strength, and in the end they did not know whose private pockets they had filled.
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The Taiwan media "Mirror Weekly," which took the lead in poking out the inside story, used words such as "shocking explosion" and "major military procurement fraud case" in the headline to express shock. The relevant report was quickly reprinted by other Taiwan media today, causing a shock in the public opinion field on the island.
The first reason is that this happened to the "Chinese Academy of Sciences" in Taiwan.
Taiwan's "Chinese Academy of Sciences", full name "Zhongshan Institute of Science", formerly known as Taiwan's "Zhongshan Institute of Science of the Armaments Bureau of the Ministry of National Defense", was established in 1969. It is the highest military scientific research institution on the island, and Taiwan's "Defense Minister" Qiu Guozheng is concurrently serving as chairman of the board.
This body has been given an important role in Taiwan's defense.
At the end of last year, Taiwan's "Legislative Yuan" passed the "Special Regulations on the Procurement of the Naval and Air Combat Strength Enhancement Plan" and decided to provide a budget of 240 billion yuan (NT$, the same below) to procure eight armaments, including the "Tiangong 3." Of these, 180 billion yuan is contracted by Taiwan's "Chinese Academy of Sciences" to Taiwanese private manufacturers, and the relevant procurement plans are being carried out in an "intensive" manner.
If something happens to Taiwan's "Chinese Academy of Sciences," the scope of the impact can be imagined.
Moreover, this military procurement fraud case also directly involves the "Tiangong" missile.
This series of air defense missiles was independently developed by Taiwan's "Chinese Academy of Sciences" and is also one of the main missiles of Taiwan's air defense forces at present, and has been deployed throughout Taiwan.
Some Taiwan media said that after the DPP authorities came to power, they vigorously promoted the so-called "national defense autonomy." In order to cope with the mainland's DF-17 hypersonic missile, Taiwan's "Chinese Academy of Sciences" has drawn up a "Kirin project" to develop countermeasure equipment.
This project is based on the "SkyBow" missile.
A malpractice case involving the two major "key points" of Taiwan's defense has already made the faces of the DPP authorities and the Green Camp forces green enough.
What makes them even more embarrassed are some clumsy and ridiculous details in the fraud case.
Taiwan's "Mirror Weekly" revealed that some important parts of the "Tiangong" missile and missile positions and other weapons systems, including screws, ammonium perchlorate raw materials for explosions, silicon-controlled rectifiers for energizing, military wires, diodes, and linear integrated circuits, "all have problems."
Once the relevant missiles use these parts, they are "afraid that they will not be able to conduct electrical injection or detonation."
At least 3 long-term contractors on the island of Taiwan's "Chinese Academy of Sciences" bid have been identified as involved. They are accused of purchasing products from the mainland, repackaging them, printing military regulation material numbers and delivering them, thereby deceiving taiwan's "Chinese Academy of Sciences" and earning up to a hundred times the price difference.
As for the details of how the Taiwan enterprises involved in the case forged documents and purchased second-hand wires from the mainland to "refurbish" and recharge them, we will not elaborate on them.
The point is that, coupled with the real hammer purchased for second-hand wires in front of it, this malpractice operation immediately gave people the impression that Taiwan's defense department actually used "Taobao second-hand goods" to build anti-aircraft missiles, and said that it could ensure Taiwan's "safety and security"...
There is also a detail, that is, the owner of one of the manufacturers involved in the case turned out to be a "cosmetics seller".
According to the investigation of Mirror Weekly, Xunzhang Technology Company in Taoyuan won the bid twice in 2019 and 2020, winning the military rectifier order of the "Chinese Academy of Sciences", but he then used the products produced in the mainland to adjust the package and make profits from it.
Xunzhang Technology Company has been established for more than 20 years, and the founder is called Chen Qingmao. According to Taiwan media, he is not from the military. In addition to Xun Zhang, Chen Qingmao also opened an international company engaged in the cosmetics industry.
Why can a "cosmetics seller" undertake a large military purchase order from Taiwan's "Chinese Academy of Sciences" for a long time?
"Mirror Weekly" said it may be related to the fact that the company's employees once served in the "Chinese Academy of Sciences" in Taiwan.
The entire key malpractices of the "Tiangong" missile were exposed because other manufacturers always failed to win the bid, and because they knew that Chen Qingmao's father and son had transferred packages with products produced on the mainland and suspected that someone in Taiwan's "Chinese Academy of Sciences" was shielding them, some people wrote letters to report them.
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There are early signs of this.
At the end of last year, before the "Special Regulations on the Procurement of the Naval and Air Combat Capability Enhancement Plan" were passed, they were already criticized for lack of supervision.
As mentioned before, this special budget, the total expenditure of 5 years is as high as 240 billion yuan, of which 180 billion yuan will be contracted by Taiwan's "Chinese Academy of Sciences" to private enterprises to participate.
The problem is that the "Chinese Academy of Sciences" has long been transformed into an administrative legal person, and the internal bidding procedure is not subject to the procurement of the authorities. Moreover, the "special regulations" finally passed simply eliminated restrictions such as the so-called "Government Procurement Law" and became a blank check for an extraordinarily large amount, and the relevant parties wanted to give which manufacturers they wanted.
Lack of oversight, and the temptation of great profits, the emergence of fraud is not surprising.
Although some KMT "legislators" have long questioned that in the process of negotiating this special budget, "the content cannot be discussed, and the project cannot be changed." There are too many cats and cats, what is the DPP escorting? Where will the 240 billion yuan be spent?
Where is it spent? Now everyone knows.
These are the hard-earned money of the ordinary people in Taiwan.
Some Taiwan scholars have calculated an account: In the dpp authorities' total budget this year, the budget of the "Ministry of National Defense" in charge of the "Ministry of National Defense" has set aside 372.6 billion yuan, plus a special budget of 40.1 billion yuan for the procurement of new fighter aircraft and 59 billion yuan for special fund operations, for a total of 471.7 billion yuan. If we add a special budget of 240 billion yuan in five years, it is equivalent to an average annual apportionment of 48 billion yuan, and the total scale of Taiwan's "national defense budget" in 2022 will reach 519.7 billion yuan.
Such a huge "national defense budget" is twice the "economic development expenditure" (260.7 billion yuan) included in the general budget, higher than the expenditure on education, science and culture (456.1 billion yuan), and close to the level of social welfare expenditure (601.8 billion yuan), which translates to 2.3% of GDP.
"Such a rapid expansion of military spending is something that has not been seen in so many years."
On February 7, the U.S. Department of Defense just announced another arms sale to Taiwan, worth about $100 million. In August last year, the United States announced arms sales to Taiwan worth about $750 million.
Some Taiwan media were very puzzled: "The national defense budget has already exploded, so should Taiwan borrow money from the United States to buy arms?" ”
Borrow or not borrow money, we don't know. The stuff of personal baggage, over the years, has been heard too much.
Let me give you an example.
In 2007, Taiwan's "Ministry of National Defense" spent more than 770 million yuan to purchase 20 "high-performance" Hailong speedboats, but it turned out that the two officers in charge of procurement at that time colluded with the people of the shipbuilding company to release water during the acceptance, resulting in these fast boats becoming "slow boats" and unable to fully load officers and soldiers and weapons after being filled with oil.
Ironically, the evidence in this case is so clear that the trial took 10 years until September 2020, when it was indicted on charges such as embezzlement with the lightest sentence of 10 years.
The more serious consequence is that the Longde Shipyard involved in the case is still the contractor of the Tuojiang-class warships, and it holds at least 20 orders, who can guarantee that there will be no similar cutting corners in the future.
Of course, none of this is of concern to the DPP authorities.
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Back to the "Heavenly Bow" fraud case.
A military scholar said that there is a class of parts and components, which are relatively basic and commercial shelf products, which can be used not only on missiles, but also for other purposes. Moreover, this is an era of globalization, Chinese mainland manufacturing provides products and services to the whole world. Sourcing these parts is a common occurrence, and buyers value the cost-effective and reliable quality of "Made in China".
This is easy to understand. After the second-level contractor of Taiwan's "Chinese Academy of Sciences" bid down, they felt that the relevant products of the mainland were good and bought them. This is purely a business act.
The DPP authorities do not need to be so sensitive at all, and even the United States has been exposed to buying parts and components of Chinese mainland.
The 2020 annual report released by data analysis company Govini revealed that Chinese (mainland) parts have entered the industrial chain of hypersonic weapons in the United States.
Govini conducted a supply chain risk assessment of seven Tier 1 contractors for U.S. hypersonic weapons and found that two companies used about 4 percent of Chinese(mainland) core components; by tier 3, the average proportion of Chinese (mainland) parts rose to 10 percent; and in the tier 5 supply chain, the proportion was 11 percent.
The gradual increase in the proportion of Chinese (mainland) parts is well understood because Chinese (mainland) suppliers account for a higher share of these parts manufacturing.
However, the DPP authorities' repeated mention of "submarine self-made" and other weapons have long become soap bubbles that can be broken at a poke.
Just last month, taiwan's media exposed that the "light sniper rifle" known as self-developed and manufactured was judged to have insufficient shooting accuracy and unqualified performance tests during acceptance.
Even guns can't be built, missiles, submarines... You can imagine that.
The DPP authorities do not understand that no matter how many weapons they try to buy or "build" at great prices, they are like mantis arms in front of the mainland.
It should be known that Taiwan's security is by no means maintained by weapons, but can only be achieved through political means, that is, to accept the one-China principle and take the clear path of "one country, two systems."
If the DPP authorities are bent on "using force to resist reunification" or even "using force to seek independence," it will only be a dead end.
Source: Patch One Knife