China Warns of Sanctions in Fallout Over Taiwan

Subject: txt 1st intl nsec china trade -
China threatened to impose sanctions on American arms contractors and cut cooperation with Washington unless it cancels a $6.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan, in an unprecedented move signaling Beijing’s growing global power. [Or America's perceived weakness.]

China on Saturday bitterly denounced the Obama administration’s announcement a day earlier that it wanted to sell the package of defensive weapons to Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing views as an illegitimate breakaway state.

“The United States will shoulder responsibility for the serious repercussions if it does not immediately reverse the mistaken decision to sell weapons to Taiwan,”

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei told the United States ambassador to China Jon Huntsman in comments reported on the Foreign Ministry’s Web site.

“It will be unavoidable that cooperation between China and the United States over important international and regional issues will also be affected,”

the Chinese foreign ministry said, without specifying any of those issues.

The Obama administration told the . Congress on Friday of the proposed sales, which include Black Hawk helicopters, Patriot “Advanced Capability-3” anti-missile missiles and two refurbished Osprey-class mine-hunting ships. [all defensive]

READ MORE

[RECALL:]

Since 1979, US law regarding Taiwan has been guided by the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA). The TRA was designed to provide protection for Taiwan by: (a) providing a legal framework for US commercial and cultural ties with Taiwan; (b) outlining the terms of Washington's 'unofficial' governmental relations with Taiwan; and (c) including provisions for Taiwan's defence.

Under the TRA, the US is obliged to help Taiwan build up its self-defense capability and, if attacked, defend it...

[TRA excerpt]:


January 1, 1979
TAIWAN RELATIONS ACT
Public Law 96-8 96th Congress

SECTION 1. This Act may be cited as the "Taiwan Relations Act".
FINDINGS AND DECLARATION OF POLICY

• to make clear that the United States decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means;
• to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States;
• to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character; and
• to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.

Nothing contained in this Act shall contravene the interest of the United States in human rights, especially with respect to the human rights of all the approximately eighteen million inhabitants of Taiwan. The preservation and enhancement of the human rights of all the people on Taiwan are hereby reaffirmed as objectives of the United States.

Source/TRA text: http://www.ait.org.tw/en/about_Ait/tra/

[Do we still stand for these things? Do we still mean what we say? {Or is this yet more 'discretionary' law} China obviously thinks otherwise. I wonder where they got such a notion.

This nation {its government} is not our friend, and by all objective evidence {their actions} our active enemy. We can hope for the best, but we need plan...]
.