Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Legislative Yuan
THE MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE (MND) has announced plans to domestically manufacture explosives. Specifically, the MND intends to produce RDX, or hexogen, in Taiwan. RDX is used in bombs, grenades, shells, and other explosive ordnance, including Composition B, PBXN-109, and TNT.
That the MND intends to domestically manufacture RDX can be seen as a move toward greater self-reliance. Similarly, Taiwan has announced plans to boost domestic production of shells and missiles.
Nevertheless, the reason as to why the MND intends to domestically manufacture RDX rather than import it is noteworthy. According to the MND, KMT legislator Ma Wen-chun, the co-chair of the defense committee in the legislature, had scuppered Taiwan’s plans to acquire RDX through purchase from India by exporting it through the Home-Max Furniture Trading Company.
Ma did this by revealing India as the country that Taiwan intended to purchase RDX from, with only the US, China, and India being the only countries in the world that manufacture RDX at scale. Reportedly, this opened the way for Chinese political interference directed at India.
For her part, Ma has denied that her revealing India as the country that Taiwan intended to purchase from was significant. But this is not the first time that Ma has been accused of leaking confidential details about the Taiwanese military.
Previously, Ma was criticized over allegations that she attempted to sabotage Taiwan’s domestic submarine program by leaking information to the Chinese and South Korean governments.
Subsequently, Ma’s actions were accused of leading to the arrest of South Korean engineers who had sought to assist Taiwan with acquiring necessary technology for submarines that it currently does not have. The South Korean government apparently, at the time, had taken the technology transfer as a security threat.
Taiwan already has difficulties acquiring military technologies because of concerns that such technology would then be leaked to China. Ma’s actions, then, were criticized as making it all the more difficult for Taiwan to obtain such technologies in the future.
Indeed, in a preceding legislative session, Ma filed 135 motions to suspend or cut defense spending in the last legislative session. That being said, this did not prevent the KMT from appointing Ma as co-chair of the defense committee in the legislature, perhaps showing that Ma is who the party would prefer to be its public face on defense issues.
One notes that in the same timeframe, the KMT has continued to block funding for key programs that would be vital for Taiwan’s defense, such as drones. Experts have warned that drones would be critical to defending against a Chinese invasion, as part of asymmetric capabilities to counter a much-larger adversary. But though claiming not to oppose funding for drones outright, the KMT has attempted to freeze the Executive Yuan’s 44.2 billion NT plan to develop the drone industry, claiming that it is a money pit and is a “rubber stamp” process. The KMT has instead sought to propose passing drone funding by means that would result in significant legislative control over what gets funded.
The KMT’s attempts to block drone funding lend weight to allegations that it is seeking to sabotage Taiwan’s defense, so as to make it easier for China to conduct an invasion. So, too, with leaks regarding RDX, with Ma yet again accused of attempting to sabotage efforts by Taiwan to obtain technology or supplies that it does not have access to.