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Updated Monday, February 8, 2010 10:20 am TWN, By Bunn Nagara, The Star/Asia News Network

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Lull after storm of U.S. arms sale

The DPP has again turned the issue around to aim it squarely at the KMT government, citing failure in buying needed equipment and wasting taxpayers' money on less valuable items. This has made both the KMT and the DPP even more determined to press the U.S. for the jets and submarines.

Still unimpressed, China has accused the U.S. of reneging on the 1982 Joint Communique in which Washington pledged to limit its arms sales to Taiwan, and to work to reduce the scope of such sales until the problem of cross-Straits relations is peacefully resolved.

Within the U.S., the TRA as a treaty enjoys the force of law which the Joint Communique as a declaration does not. Over the years, both Washington and Beijing have traded accusations of betraying the spirit of the Joint Communique by positioning weapons on both sides of the Taiwan Straits.

For China today, it seems particularly unacceptable that the U.S. should value a renegade province's TRA over a rising mainland's Joint Communique. And thus the display of righteous exasperation.

Some analysts see China's threat of sanctions against U.S. firms that supply weapons to Taiwan as signifying China's global economic clout. This is indeed a growing phenomenon — companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin, as ever competing against Europe's Airbus, may have to weigh the option of selling Taipei several fighter jets against that of selling Beijing nearly 4,000 civilian aircraft over the next 18 years.

Even more important for the U.S. may be China's threatened withdrawal of diplomatic cooperation over a range of pressing issues: North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, Burma and global warming. North Korea's nuclear weaponry irks U.S. allies Japan and South Korea, while Iran's nuclear plans unsettle major U.S. ally Israel. This series of events happens to come at a bad time for U.S.-China relations. Among other things, U.S. President Barack Obama's postponed meeting with the Dalai Lama is now about to take place, which can be expected to set back bilateral relations further.

China's firm reaction against the proposed U.S.-Taiwan arms deal, which some see as the strongest in three decades, may ultimately be aimed at the U.S. Congress. Lawmakers there have a full month to block, impede or modify the proposed deal, and there is no telling how or whether they would do so.

Ultimately, China may be protesting loudly because it might seem most unbecoming of it if it did not. Beijing and Washington well understand that there is far more at stake for both than fretting or sweating over a periodic commercial exercise of limited utility.

The smart betting now is on both to find swift, effective and quiet ways to overcome the present impasse.

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Comments

February 12, 2010 cia-yes@

Everybody is pretending or performing respective role well and deceiving its own people. Just a routine and reflex reaction.
1. China must protest, otherwise Chinese people in particular and the whole world in general will regard Chinese government as toothless tiger. And the authority of communist party will be eroded.
2. US has to find some way to dump its out-dated weapons at somewhat a higher price than scrap price so as to help her own economy and let America known that she is not as weak as they think. At the same time, she has the obligation to show Taiwan in particular and Asia in general that she is the sole protector of the free world from communism.
3. It's weird if people of Taiwan feel secure by American weapons and free gift of assurance ( ie American involvement in the event of hypothetical Chinese invasion of Taiwan for exorbitant price for second class weapons). KMT was forced to show its love for Taiwan by buying expensive weapons, otherwise it'll be immediately labeled by green as selling out Taiwan. DPP also has its role in the drama, by challenging China it can derail the warming tie between Mainland and Taiwan.
Conclusion: What a perfect role each has played faithfully at the expense of Taiwanese people.