Taiwan’s Version of The Big Short
Money, Money, Money, I Got Love In My Tummy...
China In Arms BOOKSTORE and GIFT SHOP!
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26 December 2022
Taiwan’s Version of The Big Short
Money, Money, Money, I Got Love In My Tummy...
By Wendell Minnick (Whiskey Mike)
TAIPEI - Mouths are watering in Taiwan defense and political circles after the U.S. released a grant of $2 billion per year from 2023 through 2027 ($10 billion total) under the Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act folded into the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Now there is a Senate bill under review for an additional $2 billion loan under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) Program.
This money appears to be aimed at providing Taiwan with cash to procure U.S. made weapons and services. However, Taiwan does not need more Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulators from Marvin the Martian. There might be little time left to integrate sophisticated weapon systems, as China has increased military prowess around the island over the past two years, slowly degrading Taiwan’s efforts to defend itself.
What Taiwan’s military really needs is real leadership and a whole lot of audacity. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has failed the military with idiotic policies that have destroyed morale over the past eight years. Even though the military has been forced to accept gay marriage, it has failed to provide any assistance for “family housing” resulting in the increase of more divorce amongst traditional families.
The money causes problems, if not confusion, over the most common trope used by Taiwan’s chattering political elites: the procurement of expensive U.S. weapons is a form of “protection money” for the day China attempts to invade. Hard to believe Taiwan assumes such nonsense, but many in the media, think tanks, and political circles here repeat this cliché non-stop.
So if the U.S. is providing billions of dollars, loans or grants, how does Taiwan now pay for protection? The narrative is shattered. Sure the loan is supposedly just a loan, but Taiwan sees the writing on the Great Wall. Beijing appears anxious and impatient with Taiwan’s reluctance to embrace Mother China.
Though weapons are always useful, this money is for American weapon manufacturers and services. There have already been a variety of U.S. political and military delegations, along with suspicious DC non-government organizations, visiting Taiwan over the past year offering to “help” the island.
The U.S. does not exactly have the Midas Touch when it comes to foreign policy, as recent displays in Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate. You could go back further to Vietnam, but why remind the Pentagon to reread The Ugly American or perhaps even The Quiet American?
Unfortunately for the U.S., Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) needs very little in the way of redundant systems, as it produces almost everything the military needs in equipment via their Material Production Centers (MPC) - from boots to rifles to armored personnel carriers. See: Taiwan Army Weapons and Equipment (2022).
I encourage everyone reading this to attend the Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition (TADTE) 14-16 September 2023. With the new money stream, many expect the biggest TADTE in history.
However, the scheduled 2023 TADTE coincides with the best window for a potential invasion by China. Ghost Festival in 2023 is on 30 August via the lunar calendar. This is the time when Sea States in the Taiwan Strait are the most calm.
For example, there were serious media misinterpretations of U.S. politician Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan on 2 August 2022. As speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the visit was condemned by Beijing. Media reports suggested China’s massive military exercises around the island were in reaction to her visit, but instead such exercises require significant planning months ahead and were held around the Ghost Festival of 12 August (as expected). The other invasion window is in the spring of each year, roughly around April-May depending on the lunar calendar.
Those in attendance for the 2023 TADTE will learn that Taiwan’s Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC) produces aircraft and aviation products. National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) produces missiles and electronic equipment of such a wide variety it is dizzying.
If Taiwan procures any defense items from the U.S. that it already manufacturers via State-run/-entitled enterprises, you can assume corruption.
Those interested in how corruption works in Taiwan can consult Chin Ko-lin’s Heijin: Organized Crime, Business, and Politics in Taiwan. If you want a deep dive in Taiwan’s arms procurement for research, consult List of Foreign Companies and Identities of Taiwan Local Agents. There is also Taiwan’s uncomfortable relationship with North Korea: Unicorn: Anatomy of a North Korean Front.
However, if U.S. requirements require “mission partner participation” in Taiwan then corruption can be reduced, but by no means eliminated.
Corruption via U.S. military sales to Taiwan work like this: Offset Requirements “require” that a percentage of a defense procurement be allocated to local manufacturers or service providers. These are normally handled by the Legislative Defense Committee where kickbacks are received by the local recipients of the offset allocation.
Some of the offset funds belong to the Party in power, at present the DPP. This explains why the DPP canceled two nuclear power plants originally budgeted under KMT administrations (cutting off funding for the KMT Party’s campaign war chest).
If the KMT wins the next presidential election, it will attempt to disrupt previous DPP-backed procurements.
This makes it an endless circle jerk.
