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After Taiwan's government leader Tsai Ing-wen came to power, Taiwan has greatly increased its investment in military projects. Among them, Taiwan's "Zhongshan Research Institute" received a large amount of money for the development of the extended-range supersonic "Hsiung-San" anti-ship missile. With a budget of NT$44.05 billion, the project is expected to be completed and mass production commenced in 2023. However, Taiwan's side faced a problem when developing the missile: many important parts needed to be procured externally, which led to the fact that in the event of a failure of some instruments, they had to be sent back to their origin for maintenance.
Generally speaking, there is nothing wrong with Taiwan's approach. After all, Taiwan does not have a complete independent industrial system that cannot produce all the necessary components. Therefore, sending faulty parts back to their origin for service is a reasonable option with strict confidentiality and the signing of relevant agreements. Taiwan has long prided itself as a member of the "democratic camp" and maintains close ties with some Western countries. Therefore, the procurement of components and troubleshooting of weapons from Western countries usually receives strong support from these countries.
However, what Taiwan did not expect was that a batch of theodolite that was sent back to the Swiss origin for repair due to a fault was sent to the Asian maintenance center in Qingdao, Shandong Province for repair. As soon as this news was exposed, it immediately aroused a strong reaction from public opinion in Taiwan. Taiwan's TVBS news network reported that the "Hsiung-3" missile is known as the "aircraft carrier killer" and is the "killer app" of Taiwan's military. However, the important instruments used internally for "locating and locking targets" were actually sent to the mainland for repair, resulting in all classified information being obtained by the PLA. Some Taiwanese military experts have also expressed concern about the overhaul of the theodolite on the mainland, fearing that it may lead to the leakage of classified information, which in turn will affect the Taiwanese military's military strategy such as air supremacy defense.
In the face of doubts from Taiwan's domestic public opinion, Taiwan's "Zhongshan Research Institute" came forward to explain that before sending the instrument to the Swiss company Laica for repair, it had removed the internal storage memory card and other equipment that may leak secrets. Moreover, after discovering that the instrument after the repair was sent to the Chinese mainland, the relevant personnel immediately conducted an information security appraisal to confirm that there was no malicious implantation of software and there was no risk of information security leakage. In addition, Taiwan's "Zhongshan Research Institute" also sought an explanation from the Swiss side about the matter, but received a response from the Laika company, saying that due to "geographical relations", the instrument was sent to the Asian repair center in Qingdao.
Of course, the "geographical relationship" mentioned in this response may not be the whole explanation. In fact, this involves Taiwan's military secret project "Hsiung-3" missile, and the situation is far more complicated than it seems. The LYCRA Company's use of the term "geographical" may be intended to downplay the issue in order to avoid complex situations with political and military dimensions. However, this low-profile approach does not explain why The LYCRA Company chose to send the instrument to Chinese mainland for repair. It is worth noting that Switzerland has previously publicly supported Taiwan and threatened sanctions against Chinese mainland if the latter uses force to unify Taiwan. In this case, the LYCRA Company should not actually send instruments involving Taiwan's military secrets to the Chinese mainland, which means great risk for Taiwan.
However, in fact, it is very different from the theory. A plausible explanation may be that Switzerland is not willing to interfere too much in Taiwan's affairs, especially when it comes to military issues. Therefore, the LYCRA Company may have sent the instrument to Chinese mainland to avoid getting involved in political disputes. However, no matter how it is explained, the incident has embarrassed and confused the Taiwanese government, as their secrets may have been seriously threatened.
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