US Arms Sales to Taiwan Latest Hit to Sino-American Ties

VOA News ^ | January 31, 2010 | Stephanie Ho

[myknowledge]

Experts hope the U.S.-China relationship will be strong enough to withstand negative developments from the planned U.S. arms sales to Taiwan

Sino-American ties are being buffeted by several difficulties -- the most recent being the announcement of a U.S. arms sale to Taiwan, an island China regards as a renegade province. Experts acknowledge there will be disagreements, but say they hope the U.S.-China relationship will be strong enough to withstand negative developments.

China and Taiwan have a recent history that stretches back to the founding of the People's Republic of China more than 60 years ago. The Chinese Nationalists lost a civil war to the Communists in 1949, and fled to Taiwan, where they established a government whose sworn mission was to retake the mainland.

[myknowledge]

I'd sell more arms to the Taiwanese to scare the hell out of the Chicoms, goad them into NOT invading Taiwan.

[pnh102]

What's China going to do? Stop lending us money? Call back our debts?

The former would be a great blessing, the latter would destroy them far more than it would hurt us.

[1rudeboy]

Call back our debts?

Where does this idea of "callable" debt come from? Is it like the bank calling you the week after it loans you some money to buy a car saying, "I want my money back?"

[C210N]

This Ho's remarks in the VOA are dripping with anti-Americanism and leftism:

Use of "renegade" in reference to Taiwan in the first sentence.

withstand negative developments.

No, an arms sale to Taiwan is a positive development.

sworn mission was to retake the mainland.

No, that might be a positive development, but the main mission is liberty to millions of freedom-loving Taiwaneze and Chinese.

[hinckley buzzard]

For most of its existence the island now known as Taiwan was of no interest to the Chinese and not considered a part of the country. The indigenous people of Taiwan are Malay-Polynesian, not Chinese. It was a chess piece in Sino-Japanese competition for a short time in the 1880's but ceded to Japan after China was beaten in in the Sino-Japanese war. Only after 1949, when the nationalist Republic of China (Kuomintang)fled the mainland and took over the island, did the communist regime decide to seize control.

The Taiwanese have a long independent history, albeit marked for a time with occupation, by the Dutch colonialists in the 1600's, and various pirates and Chinese warlords intermittently after the Dutch left a generation later. There was never any governmental presence or administration by the Chinese mainland regimes.

China's claim on Taiwan has no validity, and is a simple attempt at a communist landgrab. The "Nationalist Chinese" have long since been gone from power, so the argument about a "renegade" province holds even less water. The Chinese are lying about Taiwan, because they would like to usurp a well-developed prosperous modern region and absorb it into the Borg-like mass that is china today.

The rest of the world has been so intimidated they have supinely failed to acknowledge the de facto nation's right to recognition and acceptance. The just response to resolve the situation would be for the US and the rest of the world to acknowledge the reality of China as China, and Taiwan as Taiwan, and have no more of this kowtowing to the false "renegade province" claim.