Datasets:

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innovation-hacking2

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shitposting_dataset1

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[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out.." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality..." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄", ">\n\nNeutral my ass" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄", ">\n\nNeutral my ass", ">\n\nSwitzerland is the prostitute among countries." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄", ">\n\nNeutral my ass", ">\n\nSwitzerland is the prostitute among countries.", ">\n\nIs this the same NEUTRAL Swiss building missile parts that just refused to allow a shipment of weaponry from Spain to go to Ukraine?\nKind of mixed signals there, ain't it?" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄", ">\n\nNeutral my ass", ">\n\nSwitzerland is the prostitute among countries.", ">\n\nIs this the same NEUTRAL Swiss building missile parts that just refused to allow a shipment of weaponry from Spain to go to Ukraine?\nKind of mixed signals there, ain't it?", ">\n\nMake them pay for being so hopelessly stupid with that mix up. Fine them enough money to wipe out a few years revenue. If the punishment stings enough, others will be more careful.\nBetween this screw up and the Swiss not letting Gepard ammo go to Ukraine I'm starting to think them swiss are too stupid to make anything that's not chocolate or a watch." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄", ">\n\nNeutral my ass", ">\n\nSwitzerland is the prostitute among countries.", ">\n\nIs this the same NEUTRAL Swiss building missile parts that just refused to allow a shipment of weaponry from Spain to go to Ukraine?\nKind of mixed signals there, ain't it?", ">\n\nMake them pay for being so hopelessly stupid with that mix up. Fine them enough money to wipe out a few years revenue. If the punishment stings enough, others will be more careful.\nBetween this screw up and the Swiss not letting Gepard ammo go to Ukraine I'm starting to think them swiss are too stupid to make anything that's not chocolate or a watch.", ">\n\nBlunder my ass" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄", ">\n\nNeutral my ass", ">\n\nSwitzerland is the prostitute among countries.", ">\n\nIs this the same NEUTRAL Swiss building missile parts that just refused to allow a shipment of weaponry from Spain to go to Ukraine?\nKind of mixed signals there, ain't it?", ">\n\nMake them pay for being so hopelessly stupid with that mix up. Fine them enough money to wipe out a few years revenue. If the punishment stings enough, others will be more careful.\nBetween this screw up and the Swiss not letting Gepard ammo go to Ukraine I'm starting to think them swiss are too stupid to make anything that's not chocolate or a watch.", ">\n\nBlunder my ass", ">\n\nThe Swiss and their love for money, I mean neutrality..." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄", ">\n\nNeutral my ass", ">\n\nSwitzerland is the prostitute among countries.", ">\n\nIs this the same NEUTRAL Swiss building missile parts that just refused to allow a shipment of weaponry from Spain to go to Ukraine?\nKind of mixed signals there, ain't it?", ">\n\nMake them pay for being so hopelessly stupid with that mix up. Fine them enough money to wipe out a few years revenue. If the punishment stings enough, others will be more careful.\nBetween this screw up and the Swiss not letting Gepard ammo go to Ukraine I'm starting to think them swiss are too stupid to make anything that's not chocolate or a watch.", ">\n\nBlunder my ass", ">\n\nThe Swiss and their love for money, I mean neutrality...", ">\n\nClearly the only way to balance this for their neutrality is to allow Swiss made ammunition be provided to Ukraine." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄", ">\n\nNeutral my ass", ">\n\nSwitzerland is the prostitute among countries.", ">\n\nIs this the same NEUTRAL Swiss building missile parts that just refused to allow a shipment of weaponry from Spain to go to Ukraine?\nKind of mixed signals there, ain't it?", ">\n\nMake them pay for being so hopelessly stupid with that mix up. Fine them enough money to wipe out a few years revenue. If the punishment stings enough, others will be more careful.\nBetween this screw up and the Swiss not letting Gepard ammo go to Ukraine I'm starting to think them swiss are too stupid to make anything that's not chocolate or a watch.", ">\n\nBlunder my ass", ">\n\nThe Swiss and their love for money, I mean neutrality...", ">\n\nClearly the only way to balance this for their neutrality is to allow Swiss made ammunition be provided to Ukraine.", ">\n\nOr for the Swiss banks to allow access to all the Russian oligarch money they are no doubt hiding." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄", ">\n\nNeutral my ass", ">\n\nSwitzerland is the prostitute among countries.", ">\n\nIs this the same NEUTRAL Swiss building missile parts that just refused to allow a shipment of weaponry from Spain to go to Ukraine?\nKind of mixed signals there, ain't it?", ">\n\nMake them pay for being so hopelessly stupid with that mix up. Fine them enough money to wipe out a few years revenue. If the punishment stings enough, others will be more careful.\nBetween this screw up and the Swiss not letting Gepard ammo go to Ukraine I'm starting to think them swiss are too stupid to make anything that's not chocolate or a watch.", ">\n\nBlunder my ass", ">\n\nThe Swiss and their love for money, I mean neutrality...", ">\n\nClearly the only way to balance this for their neutrality is to allow Swiss made ammunition be provided to Ukraine.", ">\n\nOr for the Swiss banks to allow access to all the Russian oligarch money they are no doubt hiding.", ">\n\nOf course Switzerland....but literally anything to make things difficult or impossible for countries wanting to support Ukraine." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄", ">\n\nNeutral my ass", ">\n\nSwitzerland is the prostitute among countries.", ">\n\nIs this the same NEUTRAL Swiss building missile parts that just refused to allow a shipment of weaponry from Spain to go to Ukraine?\nKind of mixed signals there, ain't it?", ">\n\nMake them pay for being so hopelessly stupid with that mix up. Fine them enough money to wipe out a few years revenue. If the punishment stings enough, others will be more careful.\nBetween this screw up and the Swiss not letting Gepard ammo go to Ukraine I'm starting to think them swiss are too stupid to make anything that's not chocolate or a watch.", ">\n\nBlunder my ass", ">\n\nThe Swiss and their love for money, I mean neutrality...", ">\n\nClearly the only way to balance this for their neutrality is to allow Swiss made ammunition be provided to Ukraine.", ">\n\nOr for the Swiss banks to allow access to all the Russian oligarch money they are no doubt hiding.", ">\n\nOf course Switzerland....but literally anything to make things difficult or impossible for countries wanting to support Ukraine.", ">\n\nMore than likely, someone in Switzerland just quit their job and retired very well off in PRC dollars." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄", ">\n\nNeutral my ass", ">\n\nSwitzerland is the prostitute among countries.", ">\n\nIs this the same NEUTRAL Swiss building missile parts that just refused to allow a shipment of weaponry from Spain to go to Ukraine?\nKind of mixed signals there, ain't it?", ">\n\nMake them pay for being so hopelessly stupid with that mix up. Fine them enough money to wipe out a few years revenue. If the punishment stings enough, others will be more careful.\nBetween this screw up and the Swiss not letting Gepard ammo go to Ukraine I'm starting to think them swiss are too stupid to make anything that's not chocolate or a watch.", ">\n\nBlunder my ass", ">\n\nThe Swiss and their love for money, I mean neutrality...", ">\n\nClearly the only way to balance this for their neutrality is to allow Swiss made ammunition be provided to Ukraine.", ">\n\nOr for the Swiss banks to allow access to all the Russian oligarch money they are no doubt hiding.", ">\n\nOf course Switzerland....but literally anything to make things difficult or impossible for countries wanting to support Ukraine.", ">\n\nMore than likely, someone in Switzerland just quit their job and retired very well off in PRC dollars.", ">\n\nMaybe it was intentional? shouldn't trust the swiss when money's involved" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄", ">\n\nNeutral my ass", ">\n\nSwitzerland is the prostitute among countries.", ">\n\nIs this the same NEUTRAL Swiss building missile parts that just refused to allow a shipment of weaponry from Spain to go to Ukraine?\nKind of mixed signals there, ain't it?", ">\n\nMake them pay for being so hopelessly stupid with that mix up. Fine them enough money to wipe out a few years revenue. If the punishment stings enough, others will be more careful.\nBetween this screw up and the Swiss not letting Gepard ammo go to Ukraine I'm starting to think them swiss are too stupid to make anything that's not chocolate or a watch.", ">\n\nBlunder my ass", ">\n\nThe Swiss and their love for money, I mean neutrality...", ">\n\nClearly the only way to balance this for their neutrality is to allow Swiss made ammunition be provided to Ukraine.", ">\n\nOr for the Swiss banks to allow access to all the Russian oligarch money they are no doubt hiding.", ">\n\nOf course Switzerland....but literally anything to make things difficult or impossible for countries wanting to support Ukraine.", ">\n\nMore than likely, someone in Switzerland just quit their job and retired very well off in PRC dollars.", ">\n\nMaybe it was intentional? shouldn't trust the swiss when money's involved", ">\n\nyou mean the neutral swiss who is currently blocking any attempts of other countries to provide desperately needed defensive equipment to ukrain, is actually arming the country most likely to start attacking Taiwan (using their own tech now) before the genocide by Russia is done? \njust... wow..." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄", ">\n\nNeutral my ass", ">\n\nSwitzerland is the prostitute among countries.", ">\n\nIs this the same NEUTRAL Swiss building missile parts that just refused to allow a shipment of weaponry from Spain to go to Ukraine?\nKind of mixed signals there, ain't it?", ">\n\nMake them pay for being so hopelessly stupid with that mix up. Fine them enough money to wipe out a few years revenue. If the punishment stings enough, others will be more careful.\nBetween this screw up and the Swiss not letting Gepard ammo go to Ukraine I'm starting to think them swiss are too stupid to make anything that's not chocolate or a watch.", ">\n\nBlunder my ass", ">\n\nThe Swiss and their love for money, I mean neutrality...", ">\n\nClearly the only way to balance this for their neutrality is to allow Swiss made ammunition be provided to Ukraine.", ">\n\nOr for the Swiss banks to allow access to all the Russian oligarch money they are no doubt hiding.", ">\n\nOf course Switzerland....but literally anything to make things difficult or impossible for countries wanting to support Ukraine.", ">\n\nMore than likely, someone in Switzerland just quit their job and retired very well off in PRC dollars.", ">\n\nMaybe it was intentional? shouldn't trust the swiss when money's involved", ">\n\nyou mean the neutral swiss who is currently blocking any attempts of other countries to provide desperately needed defensive equipment to ukrain, is actually arming the country most likely to start attacking Taiwan (using their own tech now) before the genocide by Russia is done? \njust... wow...", ">\n\nBlunder or deliberately? How can anyone made such mistake? Who else dare to do business with them. This is missile component, not some spare part" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄", ">\n\nNeutral my ass", ">\n\nSwitzerland is the prostitute among countries.", ">\n\nIs this the same NEUTRAL Swiss building missile parts that just refused to allow a shipment of weaponry from Spain to go to Ukraine?\nKind of mixed signals there, ain't it?", ">\n\nMake them pay for being so hopelessly stupid with that mix up. Fine them enough money to wipe out a few years revenue. If the punishment stings enough, others will be more careful.\nBetween this screw up and the Swiss not letting Gepard ammo go to Ukraine I'm starting to think them swiss are too stupid to make anything that's not chocolate or a watch.", ">\n\nBlunder my ass", ">\n\nThe Swiss and their love for money, I mean neutrality...", ">\n\nClearly the only way to balance this for their neutrality is to allow Swiss made ammunition be provided to Ukraine.", ">\n\nOr for the Swiss banks to allow access to all the Russian oligarch money they are no doubt hiding.", ">\n\nOf course Switzerland....but literally anything to make things difficult or impossible for countries wanting to support Ukraine.", ">\n\nMore than likely, someone in Switzerland just quit their job and retired very well off in PRC dollars.", ">\n\nMaybe it was intentional? shouldn't trust the swiss when money's involved", ">\n\nyou mean the neutral swiss who is currently blocking any attempts of other countries to provide desperately needed defensive equipment to ukrain, is actually arming the country most likely to start attacking Taiwan (using their own tech now) before the genocide by Russia is done? \njust... wow...", ">\n\nBlunder or deliberately? How can anyone made such mistake? Who else dare to do business with them. This is missile component, not some spare part", ">\n\nI misread the title as \"Intentional Blunder\", but that's probably correct." ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄", ">\n\nNeutral my ass", ">\n\nSwitzerland is the prostitute among countries.", ">\n\nIs this the same NEUTRAL Swiss building missile parts that just refused to allow a shipment of weaponry from Spain to go to Ukraine?\nKind of mixed signals there, ain't it?", ">\n\nMake them pay for being so hopelessly stupid with that mix up. Fine them enough money to wipe out a few years revenue. If the punishment stings enough, others will be more careful.\nBetween this screw up and the Swiss not letting Gepard ammo go to Ukraine I'm starting to think them swiss are too stupid to make anything that's not chocolate or a watch.", ">\n\nBlunder my ass", ">\n\nThe Swiss and their love for money, I mean neutrality...", ">\n\nClearly the only way to balance this for their neutrality is to allow Swiss made ammunition be provided to Ukraine.", ">\n\nOr for the Swiss banks to allow access to all the Russian oligarch money they are no doubt hiding.", ">\n\nOf course Switzerland....but literally anything to make things difficult or impossible for countries wanting to support Ukraine.", ">\n\nMore than likely, someone in Switzerland just quit their job and retired very well off in PRC dollars.", ">\n\nMaybe it was intentional? shouldn't trust the swiss when money's involved", ">\n\nyou mean the neutral swiss who is currently blocking any attempts of other countries to provide desperately needed defensive equipment to ukrain, is actually arming the country most likely to start attacking Taiwan (using their own tech now) before the genocide by Russia is done? \njust... wow...", ">\n\nBlunder or deliberately? How can anyone made such mistake? Who else dare to do business with them. This is missile component, not some spare part", ">\n\nI misread the title as \"Intentional Blunder\", but that's probably correct.", ">\n\nWas it really a blunder?" ]

[ "Someone mixed up \"Republic of China\" and \"People's Republic of China\" on the shipping form.", ">\n\nI was living in Seoul.\nMy mother wanted to send me a package.\nShe had it addressed to South Korea.\nThe podunk postmaster in my podunk hometown tells her: I'm pretty sure Seoul is in North Korea...", ">\n\nI went to the post office with a letter to South Africa and gave it to the postmaster not knowing how much the stamp was worth.\nPostmaster; \"South Africa ? Can you be more specific ?\"", ">\n\nI once received some salsa from New York City", ">\n\nNEW YORK CITY!?\nGet the rope", ">\n\nCasually joking about hanging people to sell Salsa.\nI wonder how well that old commercial would fly these days?", ">\n\nI never interpreted it as a hanging because the characters were cowboys. I always thought they were going to lasso or hogtie not murder. But it never really said one way or the other...", ">\n\nYou think cowboys didn't lynch people? I remember the murder in the voice of the guy who uttered the line. The intent was clear.", ">\n\nYeah, I always took it a murder, too.\nI still think of the commercial 50% of the time I cruise down the salsa aisle.\nSame era, Tombstone brand frozen pizza's marketing tag line was, \"What do you want on your Tombstone?\" \nSpoken in a gravely, menacing voice. \nThe 80s and 90s were a trip!", ">\n\nTry cooking a tombstone on a pizza stone sometime. Defrost it first.\nIt’s shocking how much that elevates a cheap pizza.", ">\n\nThis is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)\n\n\nA Swiss company has alarmed Taiwanese citizens by sending devices used to operate Taiwan's anti-ship missiles to China for repairs.\nAccording to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People's Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan's national security at risk.\nChina claims Taiwan is a rogue province and should be brought back under communist control, while Taiwan maintains that the Chinese Communist Party, which took control of China in 1949, is not a legitimate government.\n\n\nExtended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: Taiwan^#1 China^#2 National^#3 Taiwanese^#4 Technology^#5", ">\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nIt was a fucking commercial equipment that is installed in the systems that got wrongfully shipped. You guys really are fearmongering, ffs.", ">\n\nMaintaining the integrity of your supply chain is really important for military contracts. Leica messed up.", ">\n\nI completely agree with you, but dudes are saying things of the line \"Switzerland gave weapons secrets to China on purpose\" I mean wtf?", ">\n\nThat's just the regular reddit hivemind. The word Switzerland triggers a variety of reactions ranging from \"Nazi gold\" to Zapp Brannigan quotes.", ">\n\nIt’s weird how people complain about Russian bots or Chinese bots or US Air Force bots. But the actual bots are those who type that neutrality quote every single time, without fail, whenever Switzerland is mentioned. I honestly cannot believe those are real people.", ">\n\nI could do the quote from The Third Man and someone else could reply and point out that it was inaccurate, if it'd help.", ">\n\nWeren't they blocking Spain from giving weapons to Ukraine yesterday?", ">\n\nSome times it is very difficult not to be fed up with Switzerland’s ‘neutrality’.\nMaybe neighbour countries should declare that Switzerland is not an ally so if anyone wants transit to the Swiss border it can be negotiated.", ">\n\nI really don’t consider Switzerland a good country. If you have no standards for who you do business with it reflects on who you are. A cowardly place in my opinion.", ">\n\n\nIf you have no standards for who you do business with\n\nThey're showing very clear standards though. Pro-west business? Barriers and barriers. Pro-China and Russia? A-OK!", ">\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake and you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\nThat their companies are allowed to officially develop military hardware for other non-neutral nations, and they do so for western-aligned powers, shows which way they skew.\nBut since they aren't giving full throated support for western interest in the latest war, now their neutrality is in question, yeah?", ">\n\n\nLol a Swiss company made a shipping mistake \n\nAh yes, sure\n​\n\nand you're acting like the country's government has betrayed the west despite them being very clear they are neutral.\n\nLike how they were neutral but cooperated with Nazis back in ww2? Let me guess, you think Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea is \"democratic\" because it has \"Democratic\" in its name?", ">\n\nPoint is, nobody gave a fuck about their whole neutrality schtick as long as it serves western interest, now it's a problem and they must be condemned.", ">\n\nI'm glad someone else noticed this and said it. Most of reddit didn't have a problem with neutrality until recently.", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nEasy to be “neutral” when you’re surrounded by European allies who won’t be neutral if someone targeted you. \nSwitzerland hiding behind their older brothers yet again.", ">\n\nAnd mountains. It’s geography helps a ton.", ">\n\nMissiles don’t care about mountains.", ">\n\nMaybe not, but every major road, every tunnel, every piece of infrastructure in Switzerland is rigged to blow.\nYou can send tens of thousands of infantrymen in to die to machine-guns positioned high up on mountain ranges, while your armor slowly tries to make their way through the valleys, constantly subjected to rocket attacks from the surrounding cliffsides.\nSure, any major country around Switzerland has the military capacity to invade and occupy the country.\nBut what would it cost? And what could they possibly gain?\nA bunch of near impassable mountains, a population, full of hatred and resistance to their occupiers?\nSwitzerland is far from the mightiest country in the world, their entire military strategy relies on the concept of \"military deterrence\".\nIt is far cheaper to try and negotiate with Switzerland, than to try and occupy it and conquer it.\nAnd we all know Capitalists love it when things are cheap.", ">\n\nThe best way to deal with Switzerland isn't to invade or kill them. But build a giant wall around them and wait.\nFew countries are entirely self sufficient.", ">\n\nNobody on reddit knows what a theodolite is.\nWhile media talk about weapon sent to China, it's not much different than, let's say, sending a GNSS (GPS) chip for repair to China. Such system can have many use, including military application.\nI bet the PRC factory didn't even realize it was part of a weapon system.", ">\n\n100% - hell, it the Taiwanese are practicing reasonable info sec hygiene, even Leica probably doesn’t realize that the optical component is being used in a missile system, which would explain why they weren’t attuned to the geopolitical sensitivity of send it for repairs in China. \nThis article is dumb and poorly written, but is really just a little business gossip about a local company screwing up..::BUT: if starts getting any traction as “news”, I’m going to start throwing some serious side eye.", ">\n\nSwiss is everyones bitch as long as you have the money", ">\n\nI was in Zurich for a quick work trip. Didn't have any Francs on me, stopped in a pizza place, credit card didn't work, but it's ok, they were happy to take euro or dollars for a small fee. Seems to be indicative of the whole country.", ">\n\nCan the Swiss be more shitty these days?\nThey keep blocking arms deliveries to Ukraine and now they help China too?\nWTF is wrong with them?", ">\n\nIf only the Swiss didn’t block Gepard munition deliveries. Ukraine could do with more ammunition for the Gepards to shoot down those shitty Iranian drones", ">\n\nHonestly without the /s I’d have thought you to be one of the angry Swiss guys on this comment section.", ">\n\nI guess many people missed that, because Im getting a lot of hate in DMs\nBut it could be Angry Swiss people\nI would think the link to an article providing the previous instance of Swiss blocking transfer of ammo and arms would have been enough to show I was being sarcastic and critical of the Swiss Government.\nThe \"Americans are idiots and know nothing\" was a response to a Swiss individual saying this is fake news and of course Americans believe it.", ">\n\nIt isn't the Swiss government blocking those shipments. But a law initiated, voted upon, and implemented by the people, years ago. Long before Ukraine happened.\nIt's a well meaning left wing law, that was meant to block Swiss military industry from profiting off wars and conflicts. It has little to noting to do with neutrality, but everything to do with the Swiss left wing parties trying to curb capitalism in times of war.\nObviously, this well meant law backfired completely. As no exceptions were build into that law. Parliament is actively trying to repair that. But, in the mean time, the Swiss government can't do anything else but respect the law (and if you know anything about the Germans, the Swiss and the Austrians, is that they love following rules and regulations. The Nordics are like that too. It's basically a Germanic thing).", ">\n\nYeah, “blunder.” Wonder how much money changed hands for that one.", ">\n\nUnfortunately a lot of people running western governments wouldn’t want to poke Switzerland in the eye… but of course only for high minded reasons of diplomacy.", ">\n\nYou misspelled diploma$$y.\nOr... diplom€cy maybe? Unclear.", ">\n\nFun fact for everyone going on about politics:\nThese were devices USED, not the actual weapons.\nThey were sent to a company with its headquarters in Switzerland, owned by a Swedish company, split off from a German company.\nThis COMPANY sent the devices to China, probably to a factory they own.\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.", ">\n\n\nThis has nothing to do with the swiss state.\n\nJust like the majority of articles posted here about Switzerland, they're about Swiss companies, not the state", ">\n\n\"Thankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. The National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology has also stated that it is considering implementing new measures to make sure that sensitive equipment is not sent to China, for national security reasons. \" pretty sure theodolites just measure the angle of the rockets", ">\n\nSwiss \"neutrality\" in a nutshell", ">\n\nWhat the fuck does military neutrality has to do with a private company???? Or wtf does that military neutrality has to do with private banks?\nShitty banks and incompetent companies don't need military neutrality to exist (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Enron, Facebook, etc. etc.)", ">\n\nSwiss banking is a defining aspect of Switzerlands' soft power. \nIts like not getting involved in a fist fight but selling brass knuckles to one of the brawlers.", ">\n\nSwitzerland once again fucking up", ">\n\nWhat a shock to see that most commenters clearly didn’t read the article.", ">\n\nI am guessing some are paid shills to discredit Swiss.", ">\n\nNever heard a positive thing about Switzerland. Their branding is wearing off quick.", ">\n\nHeard recently that \"Swiss chocolate\" actually is the among the lowest quality chocolate out there, but it's somehow stuck in people's minds that it's good.", ">\n\nbad argument. countries in south america usually export the better quality goods and keep the worse ones for their own country.", ">\n\nThey won't let Spain send arms containing Swiss technology to Ukraine but they screwed over the Taiwanese. Swiss neutrality is a farce.", ">\n\nYou know how you can't fathom how Trumpians believe complete bullshit that is obviously a lie? \nWelcome to being on the same level. You obviously didn't read the article, have no idea what this is about, and have no interest in actually learning anything. But you came to some completely fictional conclusions about the situation and feel very strongly about them!", ">\n\nThe Swiss, profiting off the misery of the world for over 100 years.", ">\n\nA lot longer than that. Since the 14th century, Switzerland was famous for trained mercenary armies that fought for various European kingdoms. Hence the term \"No Gold, No Swiss\"\nA descendent of the Swiss Mercenary army is the Vatican's Pontifical Swiss Guard.", ">\n\nHahahahaha good old Neutral Switzerland", ">\n\nSwiss neutrality has never been less respectable since WW2.", ">\n\nYou guys havent even read the article, and dont even seem to care to read it. Leica is a well-known manufacturer of Theodolites and topography/scanning equipment, which is the only thing that got sent to China by mistake. Thing is, Leica sells Theodolites to well, everyone, China included, since this is equipment regularly used by the Construction and Topography/Geodesy fields. No breach of ifnormation happened when it got there because thats all that is, a theodolite. It wasnt a \"sensitive system that could be exploited\" that was sent to China guys. And the news website does a very good job at rattling up everybody for a simple logistics thing.", ">\n\nToo late, apparently hating Switzerland is the new favorite thing to do on Reddit. Probably the sane mentality people have when they hate anyone who doesn't 100% agree either them politically", ">\n\nThose last few days have been a great showing of the hivemind effect, and the fact that your average reddit user is actually a brainwashed moron who can literally not understand things that aren't purely black or purely white, combined with an inevitable inability to read more than 180 characters and do research.", ">\n\nYeah I hope that most of them are just teenagers, I know thay black and white thinking can be very dangerous and also bad for your mental health. I know cause I used to do it a lot when I was younger.", ">\n\nFake news. This is not a missile component, but a device used on a ground for various measurements. Leica sells them on open market to civilians for reasonable prices, they sell thousends of them all around the world each year, I just saw one few days ago on a street. There are other manufacturers, but Leica is one of the best.\nIf anybody is to blame, is the Taiwan military not removing data in the internal memory before sending for repairs.\nLeica probably wasn't even informated that a device is used in a sensitive / classified environment, and treated it just like hundreds of others devices they service non stop.\nIt is like I would send my mechanical pencil to repair in my local shop, and they would send it to China, and then I would complain that it might leak sensitive information of what I wrote with a said pencil. Silly.\nEdit: military did in fact remove internal memory before sending it to repair. So non-story, with exception of possibly implanting compromised software or chips, but again that is on Taiwan.", ">\n\nReddit hivemind at it again...\nRead the article, it's not long. A commercially available product was bought by the Taiwanese. Some of them needed repair. So they were sent to Switzerland. The Swiss company repairs (and probably manufactures) these parts in China. So they were sent there. Noone is talking about a breach of contract... So I'd assume there was no clause in the sales contract about not shipping these to China or treating them with special care.If you're in the defense business it's on you to protect your secrets. If you need to work with a private entity you background check them and you make the security requirements part of the contract...\nThis is simply a private company doing its business. Why would you expect them to handle Taiwanese repairs differently? If you want special treatment from a business, you make it part of your contract with said business...\nAnd since so many here are harking on Switzerland about preventing export of military goods to Ukraine: That's because Switzerland has a law about not exporting arms into war zones. And if you buy Swiss arms you contractually agree to not circumvent it, by exporting it to a war zone after you purchased it. The countries buying Swiss armes knew about the clause, agreed to it and now blame Switzerland for enforcing the contract...", ">\n\nTo piggy back off you: These comments are so low effort and nearly identical it is hard to take them seriously as genuine typed out comments by an actual person. Either bot or bot like behavior. If they actually are unique individuals typing these garbage level comments then shame on them and their stupidity.\nFrom the TFA:\n“Taiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.”\nSo a private firm, not government of Switzerland, sent parts to China for repairs. The repaired parts were then sent to Taiwan from China. Is that a security weakpoint easily taken advantage of? Yes, but it’s not the entire government of Switzerland. Very strange comments and behavior.", ">\n\nThere are many great qualities about reddit, and some great communities. But the average user is not too different in his behaviour to any other social media user. They just go with the flow. It's especially funny when the flow in a thread changes over time. You'll first have everyone saying A, then when it turns out that's wrong everyone will say B and pretend they can't imagine how anyone would ever say A:D \nSure there are some bots too, but I'm pretty confident most of it is just from uninformed people wanting to be part of a perceived group.", ">\n\nI am not sure if the average reddit user is similar or actually way below other social media users tbh. The difference being that most users of other social media palteforms tend to start on it with real connections (you have real life friends on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...) whereas reddit is built for people that are isolated in their tastes and want to find \"like minded communities\".\nSo I feel the sheep/hivemind behavior may be even stronger on reddit. But those are just based on thoughts, have no research available for that. I'd be curious to read about it though.", ">\n\nSure seems like a lot of accidents break in China's favor.", ">\n\nOh, the Swiss suck so bad.", ">\n\nBut won't let Germany give Ukraine ammo for Gepard 🤷‍♂️", ">\n\n\"Oh, we're so sorry. To make up for it, here's some Nazi gold we hid for them.\"\n-Switzerland", ">\n\nWe should now refer to it as concentration camp gold, cause that’s what it is.", ">\n\nI’m happy with genocide gold or holocaust gold.", ">\n\nfuck Switzerland neutrality, all my homies hate Switzerland neutrality", ">\n\nNeutrality in itself is not bad. Building a nations wealth with gold from holocaust victims, shutting borders with racist politics and housing some of the most unethical blood sucking companies in the world is bad though. \nSwitzerland is a disgraceful country getting away with a lot which other countries would never get away with.", ">\n\nThat's a pretty egregious break in chain of custody. I'd say there's no way China would be this blunt in their approach but operational subtlety has not been their strength as of late.\nRegardless of function, I wouldn't trust any of those parts for more than the aggregate value of their raw materials.", ">\n\nRead the article. You are barking at the alternative reality.", ">\n\nswitzerland is not doing so well on the pr department lately", ">\n\n'Blunder'", ">\n\n“That’s a paddlin’”", ">\n\nOuch", ">\n\nWhat a boner!", ">\n\nWest Taiwan is an easy mistake", ">\n\nLiteracy is only the first step", ">\n\nNice 👍", ">\n\n“No the OTHER China!!!”", ">\n\nWasn’t Leica also giving Russia advanced targeting equipment during sanction?. I’d say this should trigger some kind of government investigation.", ">\n\nBut Sweden can’t give Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.", ">\n\nR.O.C., P.R.O.C…. Pretty easy for mix up, by the ignorant.", ">\n\nNah. Some Swiss dude now has a much higher balance in an untraceable account. “OoPs, HoNeSt MiStaKe”", ">\n\nDang it, this is going to make me go research the Swede and their status globally. Was this an accidentally on purpose type situation. 😳🤣😉 \nThis wouldn’t be the only nation playing both sides from the middle recently.", ">\n\nAren’t the Swiss famously corrupt? Swiss bank accounts and the like. Not sure how true to reality that perception is but whoever did that should be scrutinized very closely.", ">\n\nI think their shipping guy is going to be looking for a new job soon.", ">\n\nChina: \"honey, are you expecting a package today?\"", ">\n\nBlunder my arse.", ">\n\nRemain impartial via \"Oopsie!\"", ">\n\nAre these the same Swiss that are blocking Spain military aid to Ukraine? Who’s side are they on?", ">\n\nNo, the people that sent the parts to China are working for Leica Geosystems and have no direct involvement is arms export regulation.", ">\n\nSwiss ☕️", ">\n\nDo people not realize that there is not a collection of people on Earth who care less about the world's progress at the expense of their own wealth than the Swiss?", ">\n\nthis is disastrous... \nLeica is a manufacturer of optics... \nTaiwan sent an unspecified number of these theodolites to the head office of Leica Geosystems in St. Gallen for repairs. However, when the components were returned to Taiwan, it became clear that the device was shipped from Shandong province in China - not Switzerland. According to Taiwanese media, the repair process in China could have given the People’s Republic access to sensitive data from missile tests, which could put Taiwan’s national security at risk.", ">\n\nAccording to Media.\nTaiwan military said there were no breach of security, compromise or leak of ANY data. They removed memory from the unit before sending to Leica. Even With data, it would probably be still impossible to infer anything secret.", ">\n\nHopefully that's true... \nbut diplomatically, Leica is dead. This is just not the way things are done.", ">\n\nIt is not dead. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. If Taiwan military wants special treatment, then they need to take care of this.\nI can literally buy exactly same model of this device on eBay right now and have next day at home.\nIt costs 6012 USD, brand new, directly from authorized seller. It is low end model by Leica standards.\nIf anybody is in trouble is Taiwan military, which Leica will cut off from all thedolite systems, due to their armature behaviour.", ">\n\nBecause nobody reads articles anymore:\n\nThankfully, Taiwan’s top military research body - National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology - said that they do not believe any data breach has occurred. Tests by the military also found that the technology was not damaged. \nDespite this, Taiwan has asked Lecia Geosystems to change its procedure for repairs in the future. \n\nLeave it to reddit to blame an entire country for an error made by some technician deep down a company food chain. \nNazi gold Nazi gold! \"Neutrality\". Give me upvotes!", ">\n\nThe Swiss have been the least helpful European country in stopping Russian aggression after Serbia and Hungary. \nThey deserve the heat.", ">\n\nI don’t get why everyone gets mad at them for maintaining the same policy they have for almost a century. \nIt’s like we respect the rights of a nation to self-determination and sovereignty until we don’t like them or something….\nI support Anyone who wants to help Ukraine with shipments of weapons, but I don’t agree with lambasting a nation because they aren’t complying with our political will.\nJust because the US decides to send weapons doesn’t mean everyone has to, no matter how strategically and tactically helpful those armaments may be in the given situation.", ">\n\nThey play realpolitik as if they're still a developing country. Other Western countries with far less resources are more idealistic. It's a great way to become a hated country which they are slowly becoming.", ">\n\nIf you think the US isn’t engaging in realpolitik, I don’t think you know what realpolitik is. We just have more resources and can therefore control the narrative to such a degree that the substructure (realpolitik) is obscured. \nThat’s kind of the point. You just can’t see it because you live in, propagate, and promulgate that same narrative. \nWe aren’t supporting Ukraine for any mora reasons. We are supporting them because they are fighting one of our strategic competitors. \nDo you really think the US is an ethical nation? Do you know our history? It is about self interest, at least on a national level.", ">\n\nYou can somewhat judge how much a political decision was motivated by self interest vs an ideal. It's not quantifiable nor 100% objective but that doesn't mean there are no differences between countries. \nI've had this discussion with someone with the same viewpoint as you before. Basically comes down to differences in political viewpoint and ideology. For me that's mainly the narrative you said that is supposedly obscuring.", ">\n\nIdeology is highly malleable, and is rarely presented as what it truly is. \nIdeology itself is the superstructure that masks the substructure of realpolitik. \nRead the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.\nIt’s a great treatise one the subject.", ">\n\nThis isn’t a fuck up. How could it be? How hard is it for anyone in the chain to Google up the differences?", ">\n\nBut the Swiss are \"neutral\". Maybe we should not be shipping missile technologies to them in the first place.", ">\n\nCash in, cash out..", ">\n\nThis reeks of corruption. Nobody makes this mistake accidentally", ">\n\nSwiss have more holes in their morals than their cheese.", ">\n\nSwitzerland's not seeming too neutral lately.", ">\n\nWtf is wrong with switzerland? Taiwan should be cautious of swiss \"neutrality\"", ">\n\nNeutrality is just a fancy way of saying you’re on your own side. After the 25mm shell debacle I’d be very surprised if any nation continues to source arms from Switzerland", ">\n\nI'm constantly surprised at how many people think it's OK to agree to conditions of a deal and then blame the seller for not allowing them to break those conditions later.\nThose nations knew they weren't allowed to send those weapons when they bought from Switzerland. They're trying to go back on it.\nThey are the villains in this story.", ">\n\nMy gut says the mistake was intentional and somebody got paid.", ">\n\nMY gut says you don't have a clue 😀\n👍", ">\n\nYea because china definitely isn't known for stealing trade secrets.", ">\n\nPost yout sources.\nI think you have none.", ">\n\n2 year old sources for something that just happened 👍\nMaybe there is a language problem? 🤔", ">\n\nSwiss again…", ">\n\nLots of \"this is clickbait not true anti-Swiss propaganda\" comments, but why are legitimate news outlets, even Swiss based ones, stating this?", ">\n\nThat was absolutely no mistake! The swiss, or neither our ally nor democratic! Their society still believes that humans come at a cost, and they can buy and sell humanity as they choose!", ">\n\n“Blunder”\nNow all of China knows how Taiwans missiles 100% work.", ">\n\nBecause they were sent an off the shelf commercially available device?", ">\n\nThat’s so Swiss of them. So neutral they end up fucking you.", ">\n\nOkay so everyone keeps saying that no one can violate Swiss third-party arms transfer restrictions because that kind of thing is Simply Not Done. The sanctity of contract and so on.\nFine I get that.\nAnd yet... here Switzerland just went and did that to Taiwan. Who, surely, never gave permission for their military equipment to be sent to China, even temporarily.\nSo is it Simply Not Done? Or what? If Switzerland is going to ignore this supposedly sacred principle of international relations, why must everyone else observe it so scrupulously?", ">\n\nRead the article. The parts in question aren't weapons.", ">\n\nOh come on, I read the article perfectly well. Did you? They are missile parts. Trying to split hairs over that is like an Onion article.\nSwiss ammunition isn't weapons either. Yet no one can so much as ship a single Swiss flakpanzer round to Ukraine because of the sanctity of international contract.\nThere is no way Taiwan gave those missiles -- or their parts -- to Switzerland without restrictions on third-party transfer. And there is no way they approved a third-party transfer to the People's Republic.\nMy point still stands.", ">\n\nAlright the Swiss restrictions apply to \"Kriegsmaterial\", material used for warfare if you translate literally. But more sensibly translated as arms. That includes weapon platforms and ammo. \nNow some tanks use gasoline as fuel and need it to function. Does this mean any and all gasoline should be considered arms? I hope we agree that the answer is no. Similarly the \"missile part\" you are referring too are mentioned in the article to be theodolites. Google \"theodolite leica\". These are measurement devices used in construction. Any construction. Apparently also with missiles. But the article makes no claim that the contract in question was a defense contract or that any specific clause was broken. \nSo what seems likely is that Taiwan bought these theodolites with a standard sales contract, without special conditions ensuring special security precautions, likely because it was just easier and cheaper that way. I wouldn't even be surprised if (at least parts of) these devices were manufactured in China to begin with. Designed in the west, made in the east is nothing new. So simply put: These are not reasonably classified as arms and hence do not fall under the same laws as AMMUNITION FOR A TANK! So yes, I will tell you to read the article. But please when doing so also think about what is being said. And consider that there are news websites that will twist the truth to help \"engagement\", because it drives traffic and makes them more money from advertising. I know, a really strange idea, totally new to the internet. You couldn't have known about it, so it's ok", ">\n\nHmm okay I have to admit, that is a really thoughtful response and I appreciate the level of inquiry you brought to the discussion.\nI am not convinced yet by \"seems likely,\" I do not put it past anyone in the international arms world to pull a fast one at any time. But I see what you mean and you make testable claims.\nSo, thank you for your comment. I have more to think about.", ">\n\nNothing to see here. Could happen to anyone. Move on.", ">\n\nNever trusted the Swiss since the cheese I bought had holes in it", ">\n\nFuck the Swiss and their “neutrality”", ">\n\nSwiss are doing a really good job if their plan is to sabotage everything in the west.", ">\n\nAh, yes, truly just a blunder.\nNeutrality isn't always something to celebrate.", ">\n\nWhy do I feel like this wasn’t a mistake", ">\n\nBecause you want to feel it?", ">\n\nMan, the Swiss are really getting some great publicity lately…", ">\n\n\"blunder\"", ">\n\nWas Switzerland always selectively neutral?", ">\n\nWell done. Idiots", ">\n\nSwitzerland doing anything like “accidentally” giving missile parts to China or Russia is no accident. Switzerland will gladly pretend to be neutral while still funding and supporting fascism", ">\n\nBlocking arms to Ukraine and now sending arms components to China. How very neutral of you, Switzerland.", ">\n\nOk, now those who were waiting on Swiss approvals for arms/ammo transfers to Ukraine can proceed as Swiss Government has shown that they ignore treaties and international agreements?", ">\n\nSo what treaties or international agreement has been broken exactly? I'd recommend you read the article, it's not long.", ">\n\nHow could anyone trust the accuracy of banks in a country that can’t even ship stuff to the right country?", ">\n\nIt shipped weapons to the right country's enemy", ">\n\nSwiss firm need to modify affected component free of charge for their blunder.", ">\n\nAnd then r/Switzerland whines about other Europeans not understanding their view about neutrality...", ">\n\nRightfully so, reddit is full of dumbfucks it seems.", ">\n\nHow to destroy your countries arms business 101. \nThe Swiss are playing a dangerous game. Between this and refusing to allow their weapons to be used when and where they are needed will be the end of their market share for the foreseeable future", ">\n\nA bit of Swiss history, for perspective...\nThe Romans weren't only prevented from spreading north by the might of the Alps, which could only be passed through in the summer, but also by the Celtic bandit clans who lived in them. For probably millennia, they extorted whoever moved through the passes, often taking half or more of the goods and treasure.\nThe people who used to live around St. Bernard's (yes the dogs) Pass were called the Salassi:\n\nThey were definitely conquered by Aulus Terentius Varro Murena in 25 BC, and the colony of Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) was founded in the following year with 3,000 settlers. Strabo records that two thousand Salassi were killed and all the survivors, nearly 40,000 men, women, and children, were taken to Eporedia and sold into slavery. \n\nThis is also the ancient culture of the Afghans who preyed on the merchants of the Silk Road, or the bandits of Tepotzlan around Mexico City, who stole from travelers since the Aztecs and were only finally tamed by the Federales about twenty years ago.\nThe Swiss, like any modern people, can be good or bad. But the cultures who hold mountain passes are just... different.", ">\n\nSwitzerland is being a d*ck again", ">\n\nNot neutral anymore.", ">\n\nSwiss can fuck off. Thanks for endangering Tawain and giving fuck all to Ukraine.", ">\n\n\nSwiss firm gives ~~Taiwanese~~ missile components to China\n\nLet's start with the real problem first.", ">\n\n“Blunder”", ">\n\nBetter open up a claim with Amazon quick just in case. I hate when they drop packages off at the wrong house.", ">\n\nIt seems the world is in the \"world war 3\" lobby waiting for the map to load ..so the countries are making friends and allies for when the match begins", ">\n\nAfter they didn’t let ammo go to Ukraine…", ">\n\n“Blunder.”\nAs usual, the Swiss are sorry that their attempts at the “I’m playing both sides so I never lose” was made public. At some point we have to accept the world is better off without them.", ">\n\n“Back” under communist control? The never were under communist control! 🙄", ">\n\nNeutral my ass", ">\n\nSwitzerland is the prostitute among countries.", ">\n\nIs this the same NEUTRAL Swiss building missile parts that just refused to allow a shipment of weaponry from Spain to go to Ukraine?\nKind of mixed signals there, ain't it?", ">\n\nMake them pay for being so hopelessly stupid with that mix up. Fine them enough money to wipe out a few years revenue. If the punishment stings enough, others will be more careful.\nBetween this screw up and the Swiss not letting Gepard ammo go to Ukraine I'm starting to think them swiss are too stupid to make anything that's not chocolate or a watch.", ">\n\nBlunder my ass", ">\n\nThe Swiss and their love for money, I mean neutrality...", ">\n\nClearly the only way to balance this for their neutrality is to allow Swiss made ammunition be provided to Ukraine.", ">\n\nOr for the Swiss banks to allow access to all the Russian oligarch money they are no doubt hiding.", ">\n\nOf course Switzerland....but literally anything to make things difficult or impossible for countries wanting to support Ukraine.", ">\n\nMore than likely, someone in Switzerland just quit their job and retired very well off in PRC dollars.", ">\n\nMaybe it was intentional? shouldn't trust the swiss when money's involved", ">\n\nyou mean the neutral swiss who is currently blocking any attempts of other countries to provide desperately needed defensive equipment to ukrain, is actually arming the country most likely to start attacking Taiwan (using their own tech now) before the genocide by Russia is done? \njust... wow...", ">\n\nBlunder or deliberately? How can anyone made such mistake? Who else dare to do business with them. This is missile component, not some spare part", ">\n\nI misread the title as \"Intentional Blunder\", but that's probably correct.", ">\n\nWas it really a blunder?", ">\n\nMost people seem to not know what being neutral and opprotunistic mean." ]