Posted on 10/18/2007 11:49:43 AM PDT by Froufrou
The Defense Ministry launched an investigation Thursday into an allegation that a Tokyo trading house procured 136 U.S.-made night vision goggles supplied to the ministry earlier this year without obtaining approval from U.S. authorities or taking other necessary steps, ministry officials said.
The allegation came to light after Northrop Grumman Electro-Optical Systems and its agent in the United States told the ministry in July or August that the Texas-based military equipment company "has not in recent history provided, sold or loaned" its goggles "to any company exporting to Japan," the officials said.
The ministry has not found any defects in the goggles so far, they said. But it remains unclear where the trading house -- a Shibuya Ward-based company handling military equipment -- has procured the goggles from.
The maker says the products delivered to the ministry "may not have been manufactured" by Northrop Grumman.
The trading company declined to comment. Northrop Grumman has not replied to a list of questions that Kyodo News sent Monday via e-mail.
Northrop Grumman's exclusive agent in Japan said the trading house does not represent the U.S. firm in Japan. A Defense Ministry official, however, said he was not aware that the trading house is not an agent for Northrop Grumman.
The official said the ministry will probe the allegation immediately.
Northrop Grumman and its distributor had requested that the ministry "reexamine all documents, including test data relating to the procurement for the purpose of determining the validity and legality of the documents and the export and receipt of authentic products manufactured by NGEOS (Northrop Grumman Electro-Optical Systems)," the ministry officials said.
"Northrop Grumman Electro-Optical Systems takes matters like this very seriously," says one of the documents sent to the ministry.
According to the officials, the trading house had supplied the goggles to the ministry by the end of February for use in guarding an Air Self-Defense Force base in Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture.
The trading house won a public open tender launched by the then Defense Agency in March last year. The agency, which was upgraded to the ministry in January this year, had designated the Northrop Grumman model and two other products for the tender.
China is a huge threat. I sometimes think that we are in with them way too deep.
Why can’t we back off some of this trade? That link you posted seems to think their products are high quality. But, as we all know, there have been too many of late that were proven NOT to be! Dog and cat food. Toothpaste. Toys.
If only Sam Walton were still around!
Yes, there are problems. But it's too overgeneralized to blame it all on China.
Some of the dangerous products, for example, were dangerous due to a bad American design, not because of poor Chinese quality. We should be careful in separating out who's to blame for what.
The other, real quality problems have sometimes resulted in Chinese business leaders being executed for their corruption and failures. What else would you have them do to fix the problem?
The copying thing is a deep-seated culture difference between Asian and Western. They honestly do not see it as stealing, like we do. Asian culture sees knowledge, such as the design of something, as public property. Copying good things is encouraged. Sharing information (designs, music, literature, etc.) is closer to a duty than a crime.
Those differences are going to take a lot of time to work out. America is certainly not the only victim of Chinese duplication, as you will find from reading the article.
Do they not know? The goggles, they do nothing!
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