China Pushes Back on Massive $385 million US Arms Sale to Taiwan

by Jim Morris, Warrior Vice President, News  

China is blasting the US after the Biden administration approved $385 million in arms sales to Taiwan. 

   On Monday, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense accused the US of breaking the country’s one-China policy and endangering peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits. “We are strongly dissatisfied and firmly opposed to it, and have lodged stern representations with the US side,” said Senior Colonel Wu Qian. 

   On Friday, the State Department okayed the sale. According to the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency, it includes $320 million in spare parts and other support for F-16 fighter jets and Active Electronically Scanned Array Radars. Taiwan also will spend $65 million on improved mobile subscriber equipment, a tactical communications system whose primary contractor is General Dynamics.  

    In October, the US approved a $2 billion arms package for Taiwan that includes three National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) units, which Ukraine has used effectively in its war with Ukraine. According to Reuters, Australia and Indonesia are the only other countries in the region fielding NASAMS. 

   Taiwan says the new system would help its air defense capabilities in the face of increasing Chinese military maneuvers. 

   Even though the US and Taiwan have no formal diplomatic relations, Washington is required by law to provide the islands with weapons to defend itself – much to the unhappiness of Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its own. 

   The Global Times, the English-language newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, blasted the US for what it called a “notorious record on arms sales to the Taiwan region.”