Taiwanese Winchester M70|Winchester Rifles|Forum|Winchester Collector

It’s been an interesting week finding guns, but one of them has me baffled. I purchased a Winchester Model 70 that has provenance to the Taiwanese military and I’m wondering if it might have some US military history as well. The rifle is in the same serial number range as the 373 WWII USMC M70 rifles, it has some barrel markings and a plaque tacked onto the side of the stock. The plaque and barrel markings are in Chinese, so I got some help with translating them. The barrel says Taiwan Army and the plaque says the rifle was a gift from Taiwan in Minguo 46 (Gregorian 1957), but it doesn’t say who it was gifted to.

How did an M70 in the USMC serial number range end up in Taiwan military in the 1950’s? Maybe a relic from the Korean War? The USMC serial number range for these rifles is quite vast, it’s roughly from 40,xxx to 51,xxx. Out of those ~11,000 numbers the Corps only ordered 373, so that leaves a ton of room for other orders. Maybe the Taiwanese government ordered some M70’s during the Chinese Civil War?

Hopefully someone here might have some information on this rifle! I pretty much bought it for the receiver, I have some original USMC M70 sniper rifle takeoff parts and all I need is a suitable receiver in the correct serial number range. So, this rifle might get converted into a sniper rifle (I’ll save all the sporter parts, I can always convert it back to original condition if need be).

What do you guys think? Have any of you seen something like this before or know anything about it’s history? Any information would be greatly appreciated, thanks!