Hong Kong: China impounds advanced Singaporean military vehicles in overt spying

(Beijing) The Chinese are renowned for spying and copying. Usually, they do the former on the quiet and when their latest product (civilian or military) hits the market, they express their surprise at just how similar they both are. So in the auto-mobile world we have the Range Rover Evoque:

Landrover

and its Chinese doppelgänger the LandWind X7. When Lange Rover complained, the Chinese simply cancelled Land Rovers patent in which to openly allow the Chinese copy to be sold inside China:

LandWind X7

When the Russians sold the Chinese their latest Su-27SK aircraft, little did they realise that the Chinese would copy it and come out with the J-11B, not only that, but using a copy of the Su-33 (which the Russians refused to sell China) which they purchased from the Ukraine, China came out with their J-15 clone.

Su-27SK

J-11B

Well, those two are but examples of the propriety theft that China openly carried out. But as stated, they usually carry out their nefarious underhand work on the QT. But in a change of tack, they have decided to openly steal the advanced details of one of the most advanced APCs in the world.

Singapore is a city-state which uses its wealth and technological base to purchase and build some of the most advanced weapons systems going. For a start, it operates 40 F-15E and 62 F16 fighter jets. It's navy has 6 Formidable-class stealth frigates, and its army hosts 190 Leopard-2A4 tanks. Remember I said that Singapore is a city-state? However, all of the above are purchased weapon systems, but as mentioned, Singapore builds its own high tech weaponry, and one such example is the Terrex Infantry Carrier Vehicle:

As Singapore is an city-state, land is at a premium, so they carry out military training elsewhere. For example, the air force trains in the US and the army, well, they train in Taiwan. It transpires that 9 Terrex Infantry Carrier Vehicles on route back to Singapore have been impounded by the Chinese, who no doubt have stripped these advanced APCs to the bone, in which to copy the advanced technologies used by the Singapore military in which to improve their own weapon systems.

The Chinese have used the lame excuse of suspected arms smuggling. But everybody knows that the Chinese are not only sending a message to Singapore not to deal with Taiwan but have taken the opportunity to steal some advance technology.