U.S.: Obama Chooses Caution on Taiwan Arms Sale

• by Jim Lobe* (washington)
• Tuesday, September 20, 2011
• Inter Press Service

The decision — which is expected to be formally announced this week — has already been denounced by some lawmakers in Congress who insist that the newer model F-16 C/Ds are necessary to counter a major military build-up by Beijing on the other side of the Formosa Strait that separates them.

'If the reports (of the upgrade) are true,' said Republican Sen. John Cornyn in a written statement Friday after Congressional staff were briefed on the sale by administration officials, 'today's capitulation to Communist China by the Obama administration marks a sad day in American foreign policy, and it represents a slap in the face to a strong ally and long-time friend.'

On Tuesday, Cornyn, whose home state of Texas hosts the Lockheed- Martin plant that assembles the F-16 C/Ds, said he and New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez will try to force the administration to sell the more advanced warplanes to Taiwan by attaching an amendment to a pending trade bill.

Even a staunch Obama loyalist and ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Howard Berman, objected to the decision, suggesting that Obama was 'knuckling under' to Beijing.

But administration officials have insisted that upgrading Taiwan's fleet of F-16 A/Bs will be sufficient for the island's defence and that, in any event, Washington was leaving open the option of eventually selling the more advanced model in the future.

The upgraded F-16 A/Bs '…will provide essentially the same quality as new F-16 C/D aircraft at a far cheaper price,' a senior administration official told reporters during a background briefing Monday in New York, where Obama is spending this week's opening of the U.N. General Assembly.

'And Taiwan would stand to get 145 A/Bs versus only 66 C/Ds. And we're obviously prepared to consider further sales in the future,' he insisted, adding that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan since Obama became president in 2009 will be double the sales that occurred during President George W. Bush's second term.

U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province, have been perhaps the most neuralgic issue between Washington and Beijing since 1979 when they normalised relations.

The Taiwan Relations Act, which was approved by Congress immediately after normalisation, provides, among other things, that Washington would 'provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character', although, under a subsequent 1982 joint U.S.-China communiqué signed by then- President Ronald Reagan, Washington stated its intent 'gradually to reduce its sales of arms to Taiwan…' with the understanding that both countries would seek a peaceful resolution of the island's status.

Subsequent announcements by successive U.S. administrations of major weapons sales to Taiwan — one of the world's biggest arms buyers — have elicited outrage, often followed by diplomatic or related sanctions, from Beijing, which has claimed that such sales violate the 1982 communique.

When the Obama administration announced a 6.4-billion-dollar package in January 2010, for example, Beijing suspended all bilateral military exchanges for a full year, a year in which military tensions rose sharply in the region as China aggressively asserted territorial claims in the East China, South China and Yellow Seas.

The administration, and particularly the U.S. Navy which pushed hard for intensified bilateral exchanges even during administration of President George W. Bush, has made renewing those contacts a major priority, especially in light of the rising regional tensions and what a senior Pentagon official last month called a 'potentially destabilising' military build-up by Beijing.

That effort culminated with the visit of the head of the People's Liberation Army, Gen. Chen Bingde, to the U.S. in May, followed by the visit of Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to China in July.

The administration was thus concerned that acceding to the more ambitious Taiwanese request for the C/D models could provoke a reversal of the progress in renewing military ties that has been made with Beijing over the past nine months, risking a new blow-up in relations and an increase in regional tensions, as well.

'This decision is consistent with regional views — that the U.S. should remain a trusted partner, but that it should not gratuitously seek a confrontation with the PRC (People's Republic of China),' said Alan Romberg, a retired State Department East Asia expert now with the Henry L. Stimson Center.

'This is not destined to really please anybody: it serves Taiwan's security needs; it avoids a direct confrontation of a high order with the PRC; and it is reassuring to American friends and allies in the region,' he told IPS, adding that 'providing the C/Ds would precipitate a significant problem in U.S.-PRC relations that would be seriously detrimental to Taiwan's security.'

While an official Chinese reaction is likely to come only after the administration formally announces its decision, it appears so far, according to Romberg and other experts, that Beijing will likely protest the sale with some minor retaliatory measures. 'It seems that they are focusing on what to them is the really important thing, which is that the C/Ds are not being provided.'

That's still not likely to please many in Congress where jobs have become the issue of the day, and building advanced new warplanes creates more jobs than upgrading older ones.

'It's a tough sell in Congress, where a number of Democrats and Republicans want the jobs associated with the sale of new planes,' according to John Feffer, an East Asia specialist who directs the Foreign Policy in Focus website at the Institute for Policy Studies.

He also suggested that, while upgrading older planes rather than selling more advanced models is more likely to placate Beijing, it will still add fuel to what is fast becoming a regional arms race.

'Ideally, the Obama administration would work with both Taipei and Beijing on military spending restraint. With Japan building a new helicopter carrier, South Korea building a new naval base at Jeju Island, and U.S. military spending still at record heights despite the debt crisis, the modernisation of weapons systems in Northeast Asia is not good news,' he said.

*Jim Lobe's blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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