What's US intention behind new arms sale to Taiwan?

Pentagon notified on March 1 the US Congress that it plans a new arms sale to Taiwan which included 453 missiles with a total value of 421 million US dollars. This new arms sale has drawn global attention by its quantities and the advanced property of the weaponry.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency under the US Department of Defense in charge of overseas arms sales disclosed that the new arms sale includes 218 AIM-120C-7 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM), 48 LAU-129A missile launch vehicles and accessories, 235 AGM-65G2 "Maverick" missiles, instrumented AMRAAM Captive Air Training Missiles (CATMs) and relevant supportive facilities. These two types of missiles are expected to equip F16 jets bought from the U.S. in the 1990s.

The United States sold Taiwan 200 AIM-120C/5 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles in November 2003 and that sale, completed in December in the same year, far outstripped the previous sale in term of the scale as well as the performance of the weaponry. The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency tried to defend the sale under varied excuses by saying that the US did it per Taiwan Relations Act. It alleged that the new arms sale facilitate the modernization of Taiwan's air force and enhancement of Taiwan's self-defense capability, which is consonant with the US economic and security interests and favorable to political stability, military equilibrium and economic development of the Asia-Pacific region.

These excuses, as people have come to see, are not worth refuting or rebutting:

The first excuse cites the new arms sale as complying with the Taiwan Relations Act. The act itself, however, violates the generally recognized or accepted international principles or norms with the use of domestic laws of the United States to meddle in the international affairs.

The second excuse is that the new arms sale implements the US "commitments" to provide Taiwan with military assistance. People here cannot but ask don't the three joint communiqu¨¦s signed between the China and the United States, and the August 17 Joint Communiqu¨¦ of 1982 on Reduction of US Arms Sale to Taiwan in particular, represent the very solemn US commitment to the People's Republic of China.

The third excuse alleges that arms sale to Taiwan "conforms to the economic security interests of the United States". How can the U.S. be justified to infringe upon other nations' interests for the simple reason that "the arms sale complies with the US economic security interests? In fact, it is consonant with the interests of both China and the U.S. and the major interest of peace and development in the East Asia through its effort to adhere to the "one China" principle without having released or given out any wrong signals to "Taiwan Independence" forces.

The fourth issue is that the new arms sale is conducive to political stability, military equilibrium and economic growth in the region. By selling Taiwan sophisticated offensive weapons on a massive scale at a very sensitive period inside the Taiwan Island, the United States is, in fact, gives "Taiwan independence" forces mired in a dilemma a "shot of stimulant or excitability", further complicating the situation in the island and adding numerous disadvantageous implications to the latest developments across the Taiwan strait.

The US arms sales to Taiwan runs counter to the promise made by the US government in adhering to its "one China" policy. And the US government ought to recognize a grave detrimental impact its arms sales can inflict upon Sino-US relations and the common interests of both countries and proceed to handle or cope with the arms sale issue from the strategic, rational height.

By People Daily Online and its author Wang Xinjun, a noted researcher of the War Theory and Strategic Research Department of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Academy of Military Sciences