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Updated Tuesday, January 19, 2010 10:29 am TWN, By Robert Karniol, The Straits Times/Asia News Network

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China's grasp of U.S.-R.O.C arms sale

SINGAPORE -- Invariably, the so-called three communiques are central to China's pique each time the United States unveils an arms sale to Taiwan.

This theme was reiterated earlier this month when Washington announced its intention to provide Taipei with components for the Patriot PAC-3 ground-based air defense system. This is aimed to expand and upgrade capabilities already in place, and it appears linked to a US$6.5 billion Taiwan arms package — including 330 PAC-3 missiles valued at US$3.1 billion — approved by the Bush administration.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu commented at a press briefing on Jan 7: “The U.S. sale of advanced weapons to Taiwan seriously violates the three China-U.S. joint communiques, in particular the principles enshrined in the Aug 17 (1982) communique,” she began. She later added: “We strongly urge the U.S. side to fully realize the gravity of arms sales to Taiwan, abandon the Cold War mentality (and) strictly abide by the three China-U.S. joint communiques, especially the principles established in the Aug 17 communique.”

U.S. policy towards Taiwan is largely governed by the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), a piece of domestic legislation enacted in 1979, and three joint communiques it issued together with China. These are reinforced by the less formal 'Six Assurances', which Washington provided Taipei in July 1982.

The three communiques established the basic framework for a bilateral relationship between the U.S. and China, and the TRA was aimed to reassure Taipei.

The first communique, issued on Feb 27, 1972, laid out basic principles leading towards political reconciliation. The second, on Dec 15, 1978, followed this up with an agreement on diplomatic normalization set to begin two weeks later. And the third communique of Aug 17, 1982 addressed the prickly Taiwan issue, enunciating the core positions held by each side.

Washington's stance included the commitment “that it does not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan, that its arms sales to Taiwan will not exceed, either in qualitative or quantitative terms, the level of those supplied in recent years... and that it intends to reduce gradually its sales of arms to Taiwan, leading over a period of time to a final resolution”.

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