Indeed, it has been the customary practice of every U.S. administrations since the Carter presidency to use both the One-China policy and the Taiwan Relations Act to sell arms to Taiwan, thus directly contradicting both the Shanghai communiqué, the 1979 communiqué for normalization and is a gross violation of China’s sovereignty. The Taiwan Relations Act gives Americans the right to interfere in China’s internal affairs by treating Taiwan not as a province of China but as a protectorate of the United States. It gives the United States a convenient excuse to sell advanced weapons in huge quantities to Taiwan.

      As a matter of fact, selling advanced weapons in huge quantities to Taiwan has been an important agenda when President Bush entered office in 2001, as he was surrounded with such neo-conservatives as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. The Bush administration came into office with the full intention of getting tough with China. This was typified with the utterance of Lynne Cheney, the wife of the vice-president, who declared at the meetings of the “U.S. commission on National Security in the 21st Century” in early 2001 that the “overwhelming threat” to the United States was from China. “Sooner or later the U.S. would end up in military showdown with the Chinese Communists. There was no avoiding it, and we would only make ourselves weaker by waiting.”3.

      Accordingly, a package of advanced weapons, including Patriot antimissile system and attack helicopters was offered to Taiwan. However, the administration’s confrontational agenda with China was deferred in the aftermath of 9/11 attack, as America for the past seven years has been mainly preoccupied with Islamic fundamentalism, Al Qaeda and the war in Iraq. With the stalemate in the Iraq War, the renewed anti-China attitude and the “China threat” fallacy gradually resurfaced once again.

      This renewed anti-China agenda was carried out with the draft report of the State Department’s International Security Advisory Board (ISAB) on China threat. According to Washington Times, the draft report said that China’s potential military projection is beyond East Asia. China's “major objective is to counter U.S. presence and U.S. military capabilities in East Asia through the acquisition of offensive capacities in critical functional areas that systematically exploit U.S. vulnerabilities,”4 the reports proclaims. For this reason, the report recommends the building of the new missile, sea-based and space-based weapons to counter China’s growth in conventional and nuclear forces.4.

       The report says China is developing space and computer weapons and intends to engage in “asymmetric warfare” that could defeat the U.S. armed forces and take over Taiwan. “In China’s view, Taiwan is the key to breakout. If China is to become a global power, the first step must include control of this island.”4. In order to reduce future potential conflict, the report said that the United States “must take seriously China challenge to U.S. military superiority in the Asia-Pacific region.”4.

      It is rather puzzling that such hawkish attitude about China still exists in Washington, which depends on largess from her for everyday loan, and American multinational corporations such as Boeing are reaping enormous profit by engaging in predatory trade with her. Yet if one looks at the composition of the State Department’s International Security Advisory Board (ISAB), it becomes apparent that they are nothing but security hawks with neo-conservative members such as James Woolsey, the former CIA director and James Schlesinger, the former Defense Secretary as well as executives from arms industry—Lockheed, Boeing and Science Applications International Corp (SAIC). This group is joined by defense industry think tanks such as National Institute for Public Policy, and the Center for Security Policy, which is largely financed by U.S. arms contractors.5.

      But above all, the Chairman of the Board is none other than Paul Wolfowitz, who was Rumsfeld’s deputy defense secretary and former president of World Bank. Wolfowitz’s appointment came after he was dismissed from World Bank over the conflict of interest over his relationship with his girl friend. Moreover, Wolfowitz was also appointed as the Chairman of U.S.-Taiwan Business Council largely on the influence of arms manufacturers for his connection with the Bush administration.5.

      The draft report once again fully demonstrates the pervasive influence of U.S. military complex over the U.S. relations with China, particularly with respect to the arms sales to Taiwan. The U.S. dares to directly challenge China’s sovereignty even at a time of economic and financial crisis in America, when America is in desperate need of a helping hand from China.

      Ironically, a little more than a week before the announcement of the arms sales to Taiwan, Chinese Premier in an interview with the American network CNN, did extend a helping hand to the United States by saying that at the time of financial and economic crisis, “we should join hands and meet the crisis together.” The “United States is a credible country and particularly at such difficult times, China has reached out to the United States,” the premier declared as a gesture of goodwill.6.

     Tragically, in Washington, China’s goodwill is interpreted as sign of weakness, and that China needs the U.S. more than ever for market access; while in China, the news of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan on the heels of the Chinese premier’s gesture to America is interpreted as “a slap to the face” by the Americans. This is a typical reaction from the Chinese who are unhappy with the current China-U.S. relations:

     “As one who loves my country, I don’t understand China’s foreign policy and Taiwan policy. For decades, the U.S. repeatedly used arms sales to play the Chinese on the two sides…why does our mainland government not have any effective means to check the U.S. government’s thuggish behavior? These things happen time and time again; does it mean that we Chinese, or the Chinese government, is really a weak pushover?”7.

      A weak pushover indeed, as when commenting on arms sale to Taiwan, the Chinese spokesman issued this usual statement: “China firmly opposes to arms sales by the United States to Taiwan,” and this “severely violated the principles set in the three communiqués between China and the United States, especially the communiqué on the U.S. arms sales to Taiwan signed on August 17, 1982.” 10.

       The 1982 communiqué specifically stated that the United States “will not exceed, either in qualitative or in quantitative terms, the level of those [arms sales] supplied in recent years” and that sales will be reduced gradually over years and bring the problem to final solution.8.

       Unfortunately, the United States has never fulfilled its commitment to this agreement and, on the contrary, arms sales to Taiwan have steadily increased “from just $209 million in 1980 to a record high of $5.7 billion in 1997.” “The increase has been qualitative as well as quantitative with the U.S. supplying Taiwan advanced military equipment, such as F-16 fighter jets, air-to-air missiles, and Kidd-class destroyers.”8.

       In addition to the advanced military equipments being supplied to Taiwan, the draft report mentioned for the first time that “new offensive space and cyber warfare capabilities and missile defense” will be employed “to deter any crisis over Taiwan.” 5. That contradicts to the assurance repeatedly given to China that the American missile defense system is solely aimed at the “rouge states” such as North Korea and Iran.5. Based on the foregoing, one comes to the conclusion that any agreement signed by the Americans cannot be taken at face value, and the United States cannot be trusted.

       Unfortunately, in dealing with an arrogant imperial power such as the United States, which has no intention of honoring any signed agreement, China adopted the policy of appeasement when her vital interests are being contested, as in the case of armed sales to Taiwan. In all the cases, Chinese diplomacy merely consisted of launching a strong protest to Washington, which becomes a laughingstock in the international community since the United States would never take such action seriously.

       In such matter of violating China sovereignty, Washington shrewdly calculate that Chinese leaders would not risk their commercial relations by having a showdown with the United States, and that “Chinese leaders recognize that China’s economic advancement depends heavily on integration with Western countries.”9.

       Unfortunately for China, economic integration with Western countries, particularly the United States, has turned her into a trade dependent country. Trade dependence on such a great power as the United States has enabled America to exploit China not only in human capital but natural resources as well. The net result is China has ended up with excessive accumulations of U.S. Treasury bonds; mortgage backs securities or paper dollars, which have no intrinsic value and will become worthless in due course. More importantly, the excessive accumulation of a vast dollar holding by China will result in inflation in the Chinese economy. By integrating financially with the United States, China is also under constant pressure to open her financial market, to revaluate her currency and to allow free flow of capital in and out of China. All will lead to the destabilization of the Chinese economy and the impoverishment of Chinese working people.

        Thus, in order to safeguard the integrity of China’s sovereignty and maintain economic stability and take care of the well-being of the Chinese people, Chinese policy makers must take decisive actions to confront Washington in the matter of arms sales to Taiwan, especially at a time when the United States’ is in a vulnerable position economically, as Washington has no desire to have a confrontation with China at this time. China must take sanction against arms manufacturer such Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and others whose lobbyists in Washington are responsible “to gin up tension with China” by “persuading policymakers and the public at large that Beijing’s military modernization, especially its missile program, is more threatening to the U.S.”5. Only by applying sanctions against them and when their commercial interests in China are at stake, the U.S. arms contractors would stop lobbying for Taiwan arms sales.