A Taiwanese firm allegedly sold equipment that can be used to make nuclear weapons to Iran under a request from China, a Taipei-based magazine said.
The firm received an online order from China last year to buy pressure transducers on behalf of an Iranian oil company for pipeline construction, Next Magazine reported this week.
The firm later shipped 108 pressure transducers it had acquired from a Swiss firm to Iran as exporting the items was not illegal in Switzerland or Taiwan, the report said, citing a Taiwanese trade official.
China, despite claiming its unwillingness to provide Iran with sensitive technology, has "secretly shipped critical components" to the country through Taiwanese firms, the report quoted an unnamed source as saying.
China is implicated, too, but perhaps Peking is counting on China being too big to effectively retataliate against and that Taiwan will disproportionately feel the pain if we try to punish both for helping Iran.
But it isn't enough to note the suspcious timing of this revelation. Taiwan owes us for our continued support and we can expect Taiwan to help us contain Iran's nuclear ambitions. Indeed, we can insist.
If Taiwan doesn't cooperate to make sure this doesn't happen again, support for Taiwan will weaken here. And one day, China will be able to successfully pressure us into halting sales of weapons to Taiwan. If the Taiwanese doubt that could happen, perhaps they should look around their arsenal and tally up the non-US weapons they have that are less than two decades old.
Or the Chinese might just buy Congressional restrictions.
