Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Padai/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 4.0
TPP LEGISLATOR HUANG KUO-CHANG recently publicized the fact that banned Chinese-made parts are being used at a number of army bases, in that renewable energy initiatives on bases have come to use Chinese telecommunications devices. This included computer control systems, power inverters, and routers, which Huang stated were in use at the Hungchailin Army Base, National Defense University, and Naval Fleet Command.
Subsequently, the Armaments Bureau of the Ministry of National Defense (MND) launched an investigation. Banned parts were found used in solar energy projects at three facilities, and these included routers, transformers, and data readers, which were located at the Hungchailin Army Base, Pinghai Navy Base, and Tri-Service General Hospital’s Songshan branch. Parts included from Huawei, while other parts were from Taiwanese manufacturers with factories in China, such as Delta Electronics or Advantech, and German company SMA Solar Technology. The investigation did not find the use of banned parts at the National Defense University. The MND has vowed to end the use of such devices and that contractors found to have violated the terms of their contract to use Chinese parts will have their contracts ended.
Afterward, KMT legislator Hsu Chiao-hsin publicized that military vehicles, including for generals, used dashboard cameras manufactured in China. The MND again vowed to launch an investigation to put an end to the use of equipment manufactured in China. 800 dashcams were removed after the probe.
Huang framed his criticisms as showing that the pan-Green camp’s “national team” for renewable energy had allowed for Chinese United Front efforts. This has been a recurring pattern of criticism from the pan-Blue camp regarding “national teams” formed by DPP governments, referring to when private enterprises and companies are coordinated toward specific aims by the government.
National Defense University. Photo credit: kenming_wang/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 2.0
For example, the pan-Blue camp heavily criticized when the “national team” convened by the Tsai administration during the COVID-19 pandemic was found to have involved companies that tried to pass off Chinese-manufactured masks as Taiwanese ones. In this way, the pan-Blue camp has alleged that the “national team” lacked transparency and, in this way, served as a vehicle for corruption. The pan-Blue camp has also more generally claimed that policies such as pushing for the development of a domestically manufactured vaccine by the Tsai administration and pushing for renewable energy only occurred because of corruption, such as links to green energy companies.
The recurring issue of “national teams” using Chinese-manufactured products links back to endemic cost-cutting by Taiwanese companies, however. Likewise, supply chains between Taiwan and China are deeply integrated in a way that makes them hard to disentangle, particularly when it comes to technology.
Hsu leaning into criticisms of cameras used in military vehicles is seemingly also to suggest that the DPP’s animosity towards China is primarily for show when it has not been stringent enough on cameras in vehicles used for generals.
Such criticisms by Hsu take place at a time when KMT Matsu legislator Chen Hsueh-sheng has proposed allowing Chinese companies to place bids on public tenders in Taiwan’s outlying islands. In suggesting that the DPP has also allowed for this, Hsu may also aim to make the proposal more politically acceptable. Otherwise, it is possible that Hsu and Huang are aiming to come off as less pro-China by publicizing such criticisms. After all, Huang’s TPP has historically framed itself as beyond traditional partisan distinctions between the pan-Blue and pan-Green camps, while Hsu historically was a younger politician who called for changing the KMT’s image to appeal to young people, even if she now seems to have made amends with politicians she previously criticized in the KMT such as Fu Kun-chi.
It is to be seen whether such criticisms from the KMT and TPP continue. Certainly, one notes that the KMT’s co-chair of the defense committee of the legislature is currently Ma Wen-chun, who is accused of leaking confidential details of Taiwan’s domestic submarine program to China. Ma’s appointment as co-chair of the defense committee is significant as it occurred after this scandal, meaning that the party hopes for her to be its face on defense issues regarding Taiwan. This points to how the KMT is not likely to care a great deal about the issue of Chinese parts used in military facilities. Perhaps ironically for a political camp that has long since enjoyed the support of veterans, the pan-Blue camp has leaned into political attacks that denigrate the esteem of the military in past years, as a way to undercut the DPP, and this is another example.