TACKLING BARRIERS: The military plans to improve protection of technology, but it often negotiates ‘offsets’ for defense orders afterward, hindering exchanges, a lawmaker said
Taipei Times
Date: Oct 30, 2018
By: Aaron Tu and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer
Deputy Minister of National Defense Chang Guan-chung (張冠群) is to lobby US officials for sensitive technology at the US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference, which opened on Sunday in Annapolis, Maryland, a source said.
Despite Taiwan obtaining industrial cooperation credit for technology transfers, the nation’s preferred mode of offset arrangements and protection of trade secrets remain obstacles to the acquisition of technology, defense officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The US Department of Defense defines defense industry offsets as a “range of industrial compensation arrangements required by foreign governments as a condition for the purchase of defense articles and services from a non-domestic source.”
The Taiwanese military has made plans that would drastically change the way technology and trade secrets are protected, an issue that had hitherto given US officials and contractors pause in exporting the technologies that are crucial for Taiwan’s armament plans, the source said. [FULL STORY]