Sunday, June 21, 2009

So...Humm....What Happened to 達震案?

Surfing the web a bit and suddenly remembered....what the hell happens to 達震案?

If people have at least some short term memory, they will remember during election, KMT accusing some dude and Minister of National Defense of corruption on this 案. Rumor has it that the company is supposedly used as a private company contracting French weapon system...specifically the Rafale jet fighters.

This is actually a pretty good move because it puts competition between the US and French weapon systems, thus give Taiwan more leverage in terms of getting desired system. Obviously, there are some disadvantageous to consider. For example, French system's maintenance might be more expensive due to their smaller numbers, and French government is more prone to bend to Beijing's will. Moreover, the bad memory of La Fayette class frigates deal does not help the case. However, all these problems can be remedied more or less during deal making etc, and the La Fayette scandal is in huge part Taiwan's (or rather, KMT's) own fault.

So now, what happens to ? Obviously that plan was completely scraped. But from what I heard recently the first court already ruled not guilty...It is really stupid. During election, everyone said there is a problem, there is a problem. And now everyone just shut up about it. What's the deal? It just shows that KMT is all election and no rational discussion.

might need some fixing here and there, but in general it is actually not too bad an idea. Using private companies to purchase weapons from France to avoid Chinese pressure etc seems to be a possibility. Unfortunately, KMT just scraps the whole thing. GOOD JOB, KMT. You officially screwed up another deal between France and Taiwan. REAL GENIUS.

(By the way Rafale is not too bad...it is used by French Navy for the carriers as well, which means that its take off distance is probably short, another beneficial characteristic for Tawian. And supposedly it has limited stealth feature. If Taiwan is able to get a hand on one of this...Taiwan might even gain some leverage on getting not just F-16 C/D but F-35 as well.)

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