The United States has approved the sale of the first arms package to Taiwan of the Trump era. An equivalent value of only 330 million dollars, mainly for “non-standard components, spare parts and repair parts for F-16 fighters, C-130 transport aircraft and indigenous defense fighters (IDF), together with support services”, but sufficient to dispel doubts about Washington’s rumors of disengagement.
And to provoke, as a consequence, the harsh response of China which considers the island an “inalienable” and “sacred” part of its territory to be reunified even by force, if necessary. The US administration’s move “seriously violates both the sovereignty and security interests of China and international law, and sends a serious and wrong signal to the separatist forces for the independence of Taiwan”, thundered the spokesperson of the Beijing Foreign Ministry, Lin Jian.
China “is deeply dissatisfied and firmly opposes the decision”, assuring – warned Lin – its willingness to “adopt all necessary measures to decisively safeguard its national sovereignty, its security and its territorial integrity”. The US initiative, whose objective is to ensure that Taiwan’s F-16s remain fully operational in the face of Beijing’s growing military threat, has shuffled the cards in a scenario which sees China vehemently opposing the prime minister’s declarations for some days Japanese Sanae Takaichi, according to which a Chinese military attack on Taiwan could represent a “situation of threat to survival” for Japan, which would trigger the exercise of its right to collective self-defense. The Chinese Foreign Ministry reported the summons of the Japanese ambassador to Beijing, Kenji Kanasugi, and the renewed request for a demanding gesture from the prime minister: to retract the “provocative” judgments.
Instead, Tokyo responded that its posture on Taiwan “remains unchanged,” in a statement designed to defuse tensions with Beijing. “The position on Taiwan is consistent with the 1972 Japan-China Joint Communiqué,” Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said in a briefing. We firmly reiterate the need for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”
The People’s Daily has taken the field against Takaichi: Japan is trying to relaunch “its war militarism” and repeat the mistakes of history with the prime minister’s declarations, it accused in a very harsh comment published by the newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party under the pseudonym Zhong Sheng (the ‘voice of China), used to express opinions on foreign policy.
The conservative prime minister, meanwhile, has said that she intends to take time before pronouncing on maintaining the “three founding principles on nuclear power”: those of “not possessing”, “not manufacturing” and “not allowing the introduction of atomic weapons into the country”: an attitude that fuels the fears of opposition parties and international observers. In short, more fuel on the fire.