The US has agreed to sell arms to Taiwan. What’s next?
This appeared in The Millennial Source
This development marks a further deterioration in ties between Washington and Beijing, which have lately seen their lowest ebb in decades.
In a statement issued on October 22, China promised to retaliate after the Trump administration approved a US$1.8 billion arms sale to Taiwan, the autonomous island Beijing considers its own territory.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said the sale “seriously interferes in China’s internal affairs, seriously harms China’s sovereignty and security interests, sends out gravely wrong signals to Taiwan independence forces and severely undermines China-US relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
“China firmly opposes it,” Zhao added.
This development marks a further deterioration in ties between Washington and Beijing, which have lately seen their lowest ebb in decades.
Two senior United States officials have visited Taiwan since August — Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Undersecretary of State Keith Krach — the highest-ranking US officials to travel to Taiwan on business since 1979 when Washington first cut relations with Taipei. These visits have clearly rattled the Chinese Communist Party.
The Trump administration has increased the number and frequency of US Navy ships patrolling the Taiwan Strait, seemingly less concerned about China’s objections than past administrations. In 2019, Washington approved a US$8 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan and opened a new “representative office” in Taipei, to Beijing’s chagrin.
The current arms sale, pending approval from the US Congress, will include 135 air-to-ground (“Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response”) cruise missiles, 11 truck-mounted High Mobility Artillery rocket launchers and six MS-110 reconnaissance pods to attach to Taiwan’s fighter jets.
The proposed sale “serves U.S. national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient’s continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability,” the Trump administration said in a notice announcing the sale. “The proposed sale will help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance, economic and progress in the region.”
The administration noted that the transfer “will not alter the basic military balance in the region.”
China’s reaction
Chinese Foreign Minister Zhao urged the US to “cancel its arms sales plans to avoid further harming China-US relations,” warning that “China will make a legitimate and necessary reaction in the light of the development of the situation.”
Failure to do so may “compel the Chinese side to fight back resolutely,” he said.
China’s increased military activity around Taiwan, Beijing admits, is a deliberate attempt to force political concessions from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s pro-independence administration. China has dismayed its neighbors in recent years by converting reefs to military facilities and building artificial islands in the South China Sea.
Close to 40 Chinese warplanes crossed the median line between the mainland and Taiwan on September 18 and 19 (an informal international boundary China now refuses to recognize), one of a number of sorties Tsai Ing-wen has called a “threat of force.” Chinese military exercises were apparently timed to coincide with both US diplomatic visits.
The US, like most countries, has no formal diplomatic ties with Taipei but is its strongest global supporter. It has been encouraging Taiwan to modernize its military to become a “porcupine,” and thereby make any Chinese attack difficult and costly.
Stability and peace in the Taiwan Strait
During a visit to a military base in Guangdong on October 13, Chinese President Xi Jinping told troops to “put all (their) minds and energy on preparing for war,” according to China’s state-affiliated news agency Xinhua.
In a separate statement issued on October 22, the Chinese Cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office demanded that President Tsai’s Democratic Party end its “plotting” with the US and “refuse unification through arms.”
“This can only seriously undermine peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and bring down a terrible disaster on the Taiwanese people,” the statement said.
Taiwan’s armed forces are dwarfed by China’s, which have grown in the last decade to include aircraft carriers, stealth fighters, drones and DF-17 hypersonic missiles.
Acknowledging the US arms sale on October 22, Taiwan’s Minister of National Defense Yen De-fa said the purchase would help his country defend itself against an “enemy threat and new situation.”
“This includes a credible combat capability and asymmetric warfare capabilities to strengthen our determination to defend ourselves,” Yen added. “We will continue to consolidate our security partnership with the United States.”
Taiwan insists it has no interest in engaging in an arms race with mainland China, but in light of the US arms sale, Minister Zhao finds room for doubt. “If they truly don’t want to engage in an arms race, then they should match their words with actions, instead of saying one thing and doing the opposite,” he said.
Further deals with Taiwan are expected for drones and land-based Harpoon anti-ship missiles. Given the focus on asymmetric warfare capabilities, President Tsai Ing-wen has made updated defense a priority in the face of rising Chinese aggression, spending US$900 million last year on air defense alone. Beijing in turn has done little to conceal its dislike of President Tsai. Her landslide reelection victory was a significant blow to Xi Jinping.
Implications of US ties to Taiwan
The Trump administration has waged a trade war with China over commerce and technology and in recent months has sanctioned companies and persons linked to alleged human rights abuses in China’s far west and the eroding of freedoms in Hong Kong. In the meantime, the US has deepened ties with Taiwan.
“A lot of this pro-Taiwan sympathy ends up being what I call ‘bad friend syndrome,’” says Lyle Goldstein, a professor at the US Naval War College. “That’s where you want to help your friend, but the more you help them they are actually putting them in a bad spot.”
Kevin M. Bell, a partner at Arnall Golden Gregory LLP, told TMS that “The sale of arms to Taiwan has always been a very divisive issue between the United States and China dating back to the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.”
“China was not surprised by another U.S. sale of arms to Taiwan. Threats of sanctions were already assumed by the U.S. and the relevant defense contractors. The primary question now is how much lower can relations between the U.S. and China go before China’s actions turn more punitive or dangerous,” Bell added.
The day after the arms sale was announced, Chinese Foreign Minister Zhao said, “People can tell right from wrong. Certain U.S. politicians should face up to and heed the rational, impartial calls from the international community … [I]f the US really cares about the development of other countries, it should do something about it and stop spreading rumors and creating trouble.”
“The hysteria of Pompeo and his like,” Zhao said, “will only rally the Chinese people’s greater support for the CPC and the Chinese government.”
A front-page commentary published last week in the People’s Liberation Army Daily, the official newspaper of China’s military, marking the 70th anniversary of “the Chinese People’s Volunteers’ going abroad to fight against the US and aid Korea,” commemorates the “glorious victory [that] left the Americans with the deepest impression that what Chinese people say counts,” emphasizing that “red lines” must be respected.
“The tree wants to be quiet but the wind keeps going,” the commentary reads. “We want peace, we want development, we want stability, and we want rejuvenation, but some forces deliberately make trouble, fetter, deface, suppress, smear, blackmail, threaten and intimidate … China has long seen such a trick. China has already crushed such a conspiracy.”
Strategic ambiguity
Shelley Rigger, an authority on China and Taiwan politics at Davidson College, believes Trump’s vision is colored by his China policy, which heightens risks for Taiwan.
“The administration has been full of people who are vehemently anti-China, and they are willing to pull Taiwan into that conflict as a pawn,” she observes.
According to Bell, however, when he advised certain senior Chinese officials and delegations, one thing was always clear to him. “China views the impact of their decisions and strategies over a much longer period of time than the United States. They think about the next 100 years, not the next ten.”
For him, if Joe Biden wins the upcoming elections, “There will be more stability and certainty in diplomatic exchanges with China. I do not think Biden backs down or becomes soft on issues relating to China, but I do believe his administration will bring back some normality in communications with China and potentially reduces or eliminates meaningful sanctions against the U.S. for selling arms to Taiwan.
“If alternatively, President Trump is reelected to a second term, then U.S. — China relations will get worse and tensions will escalate.”
Originally published at https://themilsource.com on October 28, 2020.