Controversy over buying Chinese satellite imagery of Taiwan, China: Council of Agriculture says it discovered afterward and has terminated the contract; reporter's verification: it should have been foreseeable beforehand
At the beginning of the year, Premier Su Tseng-chang declared that the state would invest 25 billion in the third phase of the "Space Technology Development Plan," yet yesterday Apple Daily reported that the Council of Agriculture's Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute spent tens of millions to procure Chinese satellite imagery. The media questioned why the Council of Agriculture did not give priority to using domestic space technology to obtain satellite imagery information. Moreover, buying Chinese satellite imagery is equivalent to handing over national land information, raising concerns about endangering national security and information security, and prompting questions that the Agricultural Research Institute under the Council of Agriculture may be suspected of negligence. In addition, people in legal circles pointed out that the procurement process in this case was not handled in accordance with relevant procurement regulations and may be suspected of being illegal.
In response to media questions, the Council of Agriculture hastily held a press conference yesterday (the 6th) to clarify. Council of Agriculture Deputy Minister Chen Chun-chi explained that the commercial satellite images used by the vendor are publicly circulated on the market and inherently contain nothing sensitive. The images obtained by the Agricultural Research Institute are only for internal researchers to interpret so as to grasp production and sales data, and there is no concern about information security leaks. In addition, the Council of Agriculture did not restrict in advance the satellite image sources obtained by the company, and only afterward discovered that the satellite imagery resources used by the company came from China. Considering society's concerns about Chinese information security products, it has terminated the contract with the vendor.
A reporter from NewsMarket traced and found that the awarded unit price in this case was only 55 yuan per square kilometer, far lower than imagery from European and American countries of similar specifications. The Agricultural Research Institute should have been able to foresee before the award that the vendor might use Chinese imagery. Last year, the Agricultural Research Institute purchased German imagery from Xincai Company at a price of 53 yuan per square kilometer, but it had only five bands. Therefore, being able to buy twelve-band imagery at a similar price meant the source was very likely China. The address of Xincai Company happens to be the same address as Boxing Company, which purchased Chinese imagery in this case.
