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Arms sales strain China-US ties
By Ding Qilin and Gao Chuan |
June 8, 2010, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates complained at a security forum in Singapore over the weekend about China's turning down his request for a visit to Beijing.
At the forum, General Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, said there are major obstacles in the development of bilateral military relations but they are not built by China.
He mentioned the arms sales to Taiwan as well as frequent reconnaissance operations by US naval ships and aircraft in the waters and airspace of China's exclusive economic zones and US legislation restricting bilateral military exchanges.
Military-to-military relations between China and the United States have been chilled since Washington decided in January to sell US$6.4 billion worth of military hardware to Taiwan, including the advanced PAC-3 air defense missile system.
Gates' description of the arms sales as "nothing new" betrayed his insufficient understanding of the severity of the issue, which is not just an ordinary, but a serious problem disturbing the US-China relations over the past 30 years.
The Taiwan issue concerns China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and its core interests. According the US-China joint communique of August 17, 1982, Washington promised it would gradually reduce the level of arms sales to Taiwan, the quality and quantity of the arms sales to Taiwan will not exceed the previous level, and the US will eventually figure out ways to resolve the issue.
Regrettably, the US has continued its arms sales to Taiwan. As a result, since the establishment of bilateral relations, the high level China-US military exchanges have been in what General Ma calls a strange cycle of "development, standstill, another development, another standstill."
(The authors are writers at Xinhua news agency.)
At the forum, General Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, said there are major obstacles in the development of bilateral military relations but they are not built by China.
He mentioned the arms sales to Taiwan as well as frequent reconnaissance operations by US naval ships and aircraft in the waters and airspace of China's exclusive economic zones and US legislation restricting bilateral military exchanges.
Military-to-military relations between China and the United States have been chilled since Washington decided in January to sell US$6.4 billion worth of military hardware to Taiwan, including the advanced PAC-3 air defense missile system.
Gates' description of the arms sales as "nothing new" betrayed his insufficient understanding of the severity of the issue, which is not just an ordinary, but a serious problem disturbing the US-China relations over the past 30 years.
The Taiwan issue concerns China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and its core interests. According the US-China joint communique of August 17, 1982, Washington promised it would gradually reduce the level of arms sales to Taiwan, the quality and quantity of the arms sales to Taiwan will not exceed the previous level, and the US will eventually figure out ways to resolve the issue.
Regrettably, the US has continued its arms sales to Taiwan. As a result, since the establishment of bilateral relations, the high level China-US military exchanges have been in what General Ma calls a strange cycle of "development, standstill, another development, another standstill."
(The authors are writers at Xinhua news agency.)
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