New US arms sale to Taiwan damages its global credit

BEIJING, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government on Wednesday laid out a 5.3-billion-U.S.-dollar package of arms sales to the Chinese island of Taiwan, a move that could potentially deal a serious blow to overall China-U.S. relations.

The decision, ground out in callous disregard for China's strong protests and serious warnings and under the hackneyed pretext of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, is irresponsible, ill-grounded and harmful.

It breaches Washington's historical promise, complicates the improving cross-strait situation and risks strangling the hard-won positive momentum that the China-U.S. relationship has gained on its way out of the aftermath of Washington's last arms sales to Taiwan in early 2010.

In what are collectively known as the three China-U.S. joint communiques, the political groundwork of the relations between the two world giants, Washington officially endorsed the one China policy.

The United States also agreed therein to respect and refrain from infringing on China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and declared the intent to gradually reduce its arms sales to Taiwan.

However, the past decades have seen the United States repeatedly renege on its promises by selling advanced weapons to the Chinese island.

In the latest package, the U.S. authorities chose to upgrade Taiwan's existing fleet of F-16 A/B jet fighters instead of selling F-16 C/Ds as Taiwan requested. This maneuver seemingly conforms to the U.S. pledge of gradual reduction, and has stirred up claims that Washington is yielding to Beijing's pressure and that Beijing acquiesces in the arms deal.

Such allegations hold no water at all. On the one hand, China opposes any arms sales to Taiwan. On the other, many Chinese and foreign military experts have pointed out that the latest deal is able to retrofit Taiwan's F-16 A/Bs into warplanes with the same quality as F-16 C/Ds.

Meanwhile, Washington's reasoning behind its arm sales is preposterous. For starters, the so-called Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 makes a mockery of the international norms by allowing the United States to interfere in China's internal affairs with the flimsy excuse of protecting an inalienable territory of China.