>>10059100
>New Zealand-made planes turned into Chinese military drones
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>https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12350401
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http://news.leportale.com/doc?id=221543844
New Zealand-designed light aircraft which once made headlines for breaching trade sanctions with North Korea have been converted into drones for the Chinese military.
The adaptation of the Pacific Aerospace P-750, famed for being able to take off from a 35m airstrip and carry more cargo than the weight of its airframe, into the unmanned P-720 is just one example of the risks of technology transfer to China cited by Canterbury University China expert Anne-Marie Brady.
Brady's research paper on links between New Zealand businesses and universities with Peoples Liberation Army institutions was presented to Parliament's justice select committee Thursday as part of wide-range hearings on foreign interference.
"The majority of New Zealand-China scientific partnerships are benign," Brady's paper begins.
"However, some New Zealand-China educational and industry linkages are with PLA [Peoples Liberation Army]-affiliated organisations and involve projects with military-end-use application."
The paper notes New Zealand's membership of Five Eyes and existing military research and manufacturing with, largely US, allies. Rocket Lab's satellite delivery customers for launches from Mahia have recently included US Defence contracts.
In 2014 Hamilton-based Pacific Aerospace was part-acquired by a subsidiary of state-owned Chinese industrial giant Beijing Automotive Industry Corporation (BAIC) that Brady says "specialises in making military vehicles and exports military vehicles to Iran and North Korea" and is part of a military-civil project to build unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Pacific Aerospace and its flagship airframe made international headlines in 2016 when one P-750 was spotted at an airshow in Wonson painted in the colours of North Korea.
The affair saw Pacific Aerospace plead guilty to three breaches of UN sanctions and one charge under the Customs and Excise Act. Court hearings heard the plane had been sold to its joint-venture partner and almost immediately sent for use in the rogue state.
Brady's paper notes BAIC have now adapted the P-750 into the P-720, a logistics UAV, citing 2017 Chinese media reports saying the drone is pitched for military use as an armed cargo vehicle for use in difficult-to-reach terrain.