An French investigation of the 1991 sale of six warships to Taiwan in 1991 has revealed that millions of dollars in bribes was paid to officials in Taiwan, China and France to insure that the sale went through. The six frigates cost $467 million each, and the bribes were considered a "business expense" to get Chinese officials to mute their objections to the sale. Taiwanese officials were bribed to make sure the French company got the contract and French officials were bribed to insure they did not veto the contract because of fears of  retaliation from China. Since the early 1990s, China has cracked down on this kind of corruption, executing several of the officials involved in this sort of thing. Little has changed in Taiwan or France.