China Protests Against US Arms Sale to Taiwan（在线收听）

China has protested against the latest US arms sale to Taiwan, saying the US action has created "severe obstacles" for the two countries' normal military-to-military exchanges.

Military experts are warning the deal would deteriorate security ties between China and the US.

CRI's Wei Tong has the details.

 
The US Department of Defense announced a $5.85-billion-dollar arms package to Taiwan, including an upgrade of Taiwan's 145 F-16A/B fighter jets.

The package also involves F-16A/B fighter jets training and logistics as well as spare parts for F-16A/Bs and other aircraft such as IDF fighters, F-5E/F fighters and C-130H cargo planes.

Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng spoke out against the sale and defined the China-US military ties as "development-stagnation-redevelopment-restagnation" and attributed the status quo to the arms sale to Taiwan regardless of China's repeated resolute opposition.

China's Foreign Ministry has summoned the US Ambassador to China Gary Locke and lodged strong protest to the US side.

Tao Wenzhao, a senior researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, says the latest round of arms sales to Taiwan will severely affect the security ties between China and the US.

"China-US cooperation has been expanding in various areas and our mutual interests have been growing. Under such circumstances, Washington's continuous arms sales to Taiwan runs counter to the good momentum of China-US cooperation. I think the latest arms sales will mainly affect the security cooperation between the two countries. In fact, the military relationship is the weak point in the overall China-US relations, and the major obstacle in developing bilateral military ties is the US arms sales to Taiwan."

China's Defense Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng says the wrongdoing by the US side severely violates the three Sino-US joint communiques and goes against the important consensus by the heads of the two states on jointly building a China-U.S. partnership that will feature mutual respect, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation.

Geng has urged the US to fully respect China's core interest, halt the arms sale to Taiwan and sever any military links with Taiwan.

Tao Wenzhao also pointed out that US issues double-faced policy on China, which features actively developing economic ties with China regardless of undermining bilateral security ties by arms sales to Taiwan. But he believes that Sino-US relations will not be stagnant because of differences and frictions.

"I think men of insight from both China and the US need to try to remove the negative impact of the US arms sales to Taiwan on the bilateral relations so as to ensure Sino-US ties develop through a right track. However, we can not expect too much from it since China and US share common interests while shelving many differences, which may last for quite a long time."

The Pentagon's last arms deal with Taiwan was in January 2010, worth nearly $6.4 billion dollars.

In response, China then cut off some military exchange programs with the US.

For CRI, this is Wei Tong.