The Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems should conduct a strict review of the Chinese firm chosen to be the supplier of automatic door systems for the MRT Circular Line, Taipei City Councilor Vincent Chao (趙怡翔) said yesterday.
French company Alstom, which is to supply trains for the line, selected China’s Nanjing Kangni (南京康尼機電) for the door systems, although the company has never worked in Taiwan and has a spotty safety record, Chao said.
Nanjing Kangni is based in Nanjing, China, and its largest shareholder is a Chinese state-owned enterprise. It has multiple records of safety incidents in other locations.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
In late 2019 and January 2020, train doors on the New York City subway opened while trains were in motion, forcing 298 trains to stop running.
A similar incident occurred in March 2023 on the Dalian Metro’s fifth line in China.
After the incident in New York, a US senator questioned whether Chinese state-backed capital in the US railway system posed a national security threat, the Democratic Progressive Party councilor said.
The city government should carefully review the investment process and strengthen requirements for contractors’ self-management, he said.
The Taipei City Government can require winning bidders to be responsible for subcontractors, but ultimately bears final oversight responsibilities, lawyer Chin Jui-yun (秦睿昀) said.
According to Article 11 of National Security Act (國家安全法), businesses from China, Hong Kong and Macau cannot work on defense facilities, but the MRT is not classified as such a facility, Chin said.
To address the root issue using legislation would require that the MRT, railways and high-speed rail be classified as part of defense-related infrastructure, he said.
The contract stipulated that the general contractor supplying cars for the new line could not be Chinese, but there was no such regulation for subcontractors, the department’s Electrical and Mechanical Design Division said.
Ultimately the bid must be reviewed by the city government and only after passing testing can production start, although the case has not yet been submitted, it said.
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