Arms Sale To Taiwan

The Sino-US relationship has developed rapidly since the affirmation of the One China Policy in 1972. With the huge bilateral trade and massive implications of shifts in international power balance, this relationship is of overbearing complexity and importance.

With typical precision of diction, the Xinhua response to the confirmation of the $6 billion arms sale from the US to Taiwan detailed China's anger while also adhering to its implicit view of itself in the world.

With each posture and move, the US and China push their relationship in new directions. Whatever the intended message here, the result will become just another step in a complicated dance. As for the mid-to-long-range implications of this for Sino-American relations, no single factor will outweigh all others. Both parties have the ability to construct policy and message based on both slights and moments of cooperation. This means that China and the US can make use of issues ranging from the Dalai Lama to Internet Sensorship or industry specific tariffs to justify a wide range of actions.

In the end, moderate response is most likely to all but the most extreme events, and despite the sharp diction of the Jinhua article, this arms sale is not one of those extreme events.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Dwight D. Eisenhower