BREAKING NEWS: THE FBI and western intelligence agencies had a long history of ordering pagers and/ or walkie-talkies from Gold Apollo of Taiwan, it was revealed yesterday.
The company in New Taipei City made customized communications devices for western intelligence groups for years, according to an unearthed 13-year-old business report.
Before this revelation, the search for the makers of the pager and walkie-talkie bombs used in a devastating Israeli attack on people in Lebanon had moved to a pair of intelligence-linked companies in Europe – but both turned out to be shell companies.
Now, a re-discovered 2011 article in the Chinese language CommonWealth Magazine switches the focus back to Taiwan.
GLOBAL OUTRAGE
The 2011 business profile says that pagers and walkie-talkies may seem "to be antiques", but were actually still being made in large numbers by manufacturer Gold Apollo on the island of Taiwan.
After global outrage over the planting of bombs in pagers and walkie-talkies last week, Gold Apollo staff denied complicity and said they had licenced one of their brands to a western company, BAC Consulting of Hungary.
But that group had no factory, and turned out to be an Israeli intelligence-run front company which also dealt with a Bulgarian firm called Norta Global, the New York Times reported.
Now, the unearthing of the 2011 report moves the discussion back to New Taipei City in Taiwan.
CUSTOMIZED WALKIE-TALKIES
"Gold Apollo sells a walkie-talkie that is almost extinct in Taiwan, but its professional technology, customization and strict quality control have won orders from European and American governments, making it number one in the United States and the second largest in Europe," the 2011 CommonWealth Magazine report said.
The company in Taiwan specializes in pagers and "customized walkie-talkies", the article continued. Customers include intelligence groups in various countries, the report said. "The demand is mainly concentrated in intelligence, firefighting, national defense and other units in Europe and the United States."
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is a customer. "The FBI ordered a text-type walkie-talkie," said the report, based on interviews with the company's staff. It says of the FBI order: "The technical requirements of this product are not high, but the security confidentiality requirements are extremely strict."
The small company outsources key parts of the production chain to others. Gold Apollo "is responsible for receiving orders, and designing and purchasing raw materials", and also "production and assembly outsourcing", the article added.
GOVERNMENT FOUND 'NO RECORDS'
Taiwan's Ministry of Economy last week said they found no records indicating that the company had directly exported goods to Lebanon. But the statement said nothing about indirect supply chains, which is how most goods move from the island.
Taiwan is legally recognized as part of China, but is presently managed by an increasingly unpopular Washington-aligned political party.
Senior staff at Gold Apollo last week portrayed the company as a victim of a scam and threatened to take out a lawsuit.
But the revelation that there is a long history of people in Taiwan making customized pagers and walkie-talkies for western intelligence groups will potentially change the narrative.
by Nury Vittachi
Lai See(利是)
** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **
In the latest international upheaval, Europe is taking the hardest hit. After 300 years of modern civilization and the churn of imperial powers, that era is gone, and a better tomorrow is nowhere in sight.
Europe has one problem: it cannot take care of itself. “No one really knows whether Europe would still be able to produce toothpaste if it weren’t for China,” the EU Chamber of Commerce said.
Europe doesn’t make toothpaste; it sells luxury brands. Fine — look at the latest news. Reuters reports that the U.S.-Israel-Iran war has delivered a blow to European luxury labels. Sales at Dubai’s upscale malls, packed with wealthy shoppers, have fallen 50 percent, and LVMH, France’s largest luxury group, says wealthy Middle Eastern customers have paused spending in Europe because of the conflict in the Gulf region.
The New York Times, in a piece headlined “Europe Is Done With Appeasing Trump”, lays out several of Europe’s current pains.
“The barrage of tariffs that opened the second Trump administration, aimed indiscriminately at friend and foe; the brazen demands that Denmark cede Greenland to the United States, and now the absence of any consultation with European allies before joining Israel in an attack on Iran that has affected the entire world, have erased any illusion among most Europeans that Mr. Trump is anything but an unpredictable, vindictive and uncontrollable danger,” it wrote.
Trump’s latest move is to impose a blockade on all Iranian ports from Monday, adding another barrier in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. president has repeatedly said, with obvious satisfaction, that America has oil and natural gas, and that oil shipping blockage cannot bring the United States to its knees. In other words, if Iran wants a war of attrition, the White House is ready to go all the way. America’s NATO allies, meanwhile, make clear they will “decline to join in.” Europe’s oil supply is already under pressure: Russian oil and gas are cut off, and Middle Eastern shipping now faces a second lock. So is Trump punishing Iran, or Europe?
“Last year, export controls imposed by Beijing on seven rare earth elements and the magnets made from them had especially severe consequences. China is a global leader in the production of these critical raw materials, which are widely used in electric motors, smartphones, and numerous everyday electronic devices,” Deutsche Welle reported. “The EU Chamber of Commerce said nearly one-third of its member companies indicated in a questionnaire survey at the beginning of this year that their business had been affected by China’s export control measures.”
The EU Chamber of Commerce knows perfectly well that China-EU relations have been pulled off course by the United States, and that Europe has not shaped its foreign and trade policy around its own interests. It has even had to tear out 5G networks built by Huawei and ZTE, while Chinese electric vehicles face restrictions. That has only made China-EU ties more tangled. Europe can hardly be called arrogant now. Energy supplies are unstable, and rare earth constraints have turned it into an industrial power with nothing usable to work with. So what now?
Although calls to “de-risk” economic ties with China have persisted for years, many European companies continue to bet on the Chinese market. Over the past year, EU figures show that 26% of companies said they were relocating their supply chains to China, “a proportion twice that of companies choosing to move their supply chains out of China or establish a second hub overseas.” The trend is clearly still going strong.
Europe’s major powers, including France, Italy and Germany, all feel the need to break free from the manipulation and humiliation imposed by the United States, especially the Trump team. Europe has finally woken up and is now pushing for independence and autonomy, placing its national destiny firmly in its own hands.
Nothing in the world is difficult if you are willing to scale the heights. Europe becoming strong again is no dream, but starting over takes patience. I would say 300 years is enough for you to turn things around.
