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QINGDAO TODAY
在线翻译:
szdaily -> Opinion -> 
Action speaks louder than eloquence
    2019-07-22  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

Winton Dong

dht0620@126.com

THE United States announced on July 9 that its State Department had approved a possible arms sale to Taiwan, which includes more than 100 M1A2T Abrams tanks, about 250 Stinger shoulder-fired missiles and some other advanced weapons.

Four military arsenal producers, namely General Dynamics Land Systems, BAE Systems, Oshkosh and Raytheon, are reported to be involved in the arms transactions this time with a total value of about US$2.2 billion. If the sale really goes through, it would be the largest military deal with Taiwan since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January 2017.

The planned arms sale has not only seriously endangered international law and basic norms of international relations, but also violated the one-China principle and the stipulations of the three China-U.S. joint communiqués. We don’t know whether it is a coincidence that the arms sale was approved just two days before the arrival of Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen to the United States. Tsai arrived in the U.S. on July 11 and spent four nights in the country — two on the first leg in New York and two on the way back in Denver from her visit to four Caribbean countries.

Despite the fact that the U.S. has promised many times to stick to the one-China principle and other consensuses reached by the two countries, it is still a typical practice for the superpower to willfully use Taiwan as an important card in its confrontational strategy to contain China’s development and get what it wants over the past four decades.

China has been showing a quite reserved attitude towards the U.S. selling weapons to Taiwan for many years. However, even a patient country like China will run out of its patience some day. Other than just lodging a strong protest as it did before, the Chinese Government, for the first time, said on July 12 that it would sanction U.S. companies involved in the latest planned military sale to Taiwan.

How could the Chinese Government put sanctions on foreign military companies in place? As far as we know, the research and development costs of military products are very expensive, so it is a common practice for military producers to develop civilian-use products to make up for their high expenditure on military products. With General Dynamics Land Systems as an example, the company is also the manufacturer of the Gulfstream, one of the most popular private jets in the world. China is now the third-largest market for Gulfstreams worldwide and its sales revenue in Asia Pacific reached US$2.3 billion in 2018. The American company is also an active participator in the famous biennial aviation exhibition held in Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province.

The situation is the same for Raytheon and other military companies involved. Raytheon itself is a major supplier of China’s airport management radar systems. According to a recent New York Times report, Raytheon is now seeking a merger of its aerospace business with that of the Connecticut-based United Technologies Corporation (UTC). The latter has already earned a lot of contracts in China by selling jet motors and installing more than 2,500 lifts and escalators all over the country.

Frankly speaking, China cherishes the hard-won normal bilateral ties with the U.S. and does not want it to be hurt by the Taiwan question. However, the U.S. should not misjudge the situation and underestimate China’s determination and capability to safeguard its national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Taiwan is an inseparable part of China. As a sovereign nation, China has every right to deter and punish those foreign companies that impair its national security. In particular, those U.S. companies cannot make big money in China on the one hand while doing deeds that are detrimental to the development of Sino-U.S. diplomatic relationship on the other.

China’s Ministry of Commerce has recently outlined factors for consideration in listing unreliable foreign entities to warn market disrupters. The unreliable entity list will further help the Chinese Government materialize the actual and potential damages caused by those foreign violators. Under these circumstances, it is a wise choice for the U.S. administration and companies to reconsider their Taiwan policy and arms sale to Taiwan since the island’s demand for weapons is really insignificant and even not worth mentioning compared with the gigantic market of the Chinese mainland.

(The author is the editor-in-chief of the Shenzhen Daily with a Ph.D. from the Journalism and Communication School of Wuhan University.)

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