by Brian Hioe

語言:
English
Photo Credit: Hunini/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 4.0

QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN raised in Taiwan regarding overcharging for arms purchases by RTX, the mother company of Raytheon Technologies.

Taiwan has been found to have been overcharged for various weapons systems, including a radar system purchased in 2013, the Patriot missile system in 2017, and other weapons systems. The purchases took place in 2011, 2013, and 2017.

Specifically, the US Department of Defense as a whole was found to have been overcharged by RTX following a six-month investigation by 60 Minutes. This extends to the US’ arms sales to other countries which includes, apparently, Taiwan.

The Ministry of National Defense (MND) has sought to emphasize that it is working with the US to recover the funds and that Taiwan will be compensated for what it has been overcharged. 575 million USD has been portioned out by RTX for compensating overcharged companies, while 383 million USD will be used for investigating corruption. To this extent, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo has emphasized that the US is also a victim and that Taiwan is working with the US to recover the overcharged funds, though Taiwan does not have the auditing capacity to look into how it was overcharged on its own.

Nevertheless, what has also raised questions is how this news was first reported on in Taiwan. News was first broken in Chinese by Yi Media, a little known online outlet with a sparse social media following.

Though Yi Media was drawing on reporting by Bloomberg, Yi Media framed the issue as potentially involving international fraud and, in this way, damaging Taiwan’s international reputation. The report by Yi Media also suggested a cover-up by the government, suggesting that Taiwan was forced to maintain silence about the matter through a secret agreement with the US.

Photo credit: Amayagan/WikiCommons/CC0

This has been denied by the MND, which has suggested that Yi Media’s reporting may be intended to feed US-skeptic political narratives in Taiwan that cast doubt about the reliability of the US as an ally in the event of war with China, or suggest that the US foists useless weapons systems onto Taiwan in order to profit. More generally, one notes that Taiwan was not the only party to weapons sales from the US, making it not the only country caught up in the issue of overcharging. The issue of US weapons manufacturers being unaccountable or overcharging for equipment does not apply only to weapons sales from the US to Taiwan.

If it is, in fact, the case that Yi Media’s reporting was intended with such aims in mind, seeing as Yi Media was drawing on actual news coverage from Bloomberg, one sees how what is often termed “disinformation” often draws on what are real and verifiable facts. Rather, one sees the arrangement of facts into narratives that fit specific political ends.

Still, wrongdoing by RTX is likely to be leveraged on for the sake of US-skeptic political discourse in Taiwan nonetheless. This would be in line with claims by KMT lawmakers that weapons sales of Volcano landmine systems to Taiwan would violate international human rights agreements, as well as lead Taiwan to become cluttered with land mines similar to Cambodia. Similarly, one has seen allegations by pan-Blue lawmakers that organizations such as Spirit of America are used by the US to foment conflict around the world, similar to conspiratorial claims regarding the White Helmets in Syria.

Likewise, one more generally expects to see attacks from the KMT on the acquisition of advanced weapons systems by Taiwan. One has already seen a taste of this with the KMT leaning into attacks on Taiwan’s domestic submarine program, suggesting that the submarine would be a floating coffin for sailors, as well as overly provocative of China. Consequently, the KMT has increasingly begun to lean into calls for freezing any raise in Taiwan’s military budget to deal with the threat from China. It is only a matter of time until one sees the RTX scandal weaponized in this way, then.

No more articles