BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Chinese state media blasted the United States yesterday for a planned $6.4 billion arms package for Taiwan but US officials said they hoped the flap would be temporary and not derail cooperation.
The arms sales, the latest by the United States but the first by the Obama administration, has added to a litany of strains between the world’s biggest and third-biggest economies, including the value of China’s currency, trade protectionism, Internet freedoms and Tibet.
The official China Daily said US weapons sales to the self-ruled island, which China claims as its own, “inevitably cast a long shadow on Sino-US relations.”
“China’s response, no matter how vehement, is justified. No country worthy of respect can sit idle while its national security is endangered and core interests damaged,” the English-language newspaper said in an editorial. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the US-China relationship was important and “I don’t think that either country can afford to simply walk away from the other.”
Gibbs said any sanctions against the companies involved in the arms sales, a move threatened by China for the first time, would not be warranted.
The United States switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, recognizing “one China,” and says it wants the two sides to settle their differences peacefully. The United States remains Taiwan’s biggest backer and is obliged by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act to help in the island’s defense.
State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said the arms sale decision reflected “long-standing commitments to provide for Taiwan’s defensive needs.”
“We will, as always, pursue our interests but we will do it in a way that we think allows for positive and cooperative relations with China,” he told reporters.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates defended the arms sale, telling reporters he hoped China’s decision to protest by curtailing bilateral military contacts would be temporary and that he still planned to visit China later this year.
