Straight News: Mr. Liu, the Pentagon announced that the White House has approved the sale of $100 million worth of equipment and services to Taiwan to help maintain and improve the Patriot missile system to strengthen Taiwan's air defense system and surveillance capabilities. What do you think about that?
Special Commentator Liu Heping: Indeed, the outside world has noticed that this is the second arms sale to Taiwan since US President Joe Biden took office at the end of January last year, and the first this year. As we all know, Trump sold arms to Taiwan almost once a year during his four-year term, and the amount was very large, totaling more than $20 billion. Since Biden took office, he has sold two arms to Taiwan, and the total amount is only 850 million US dollars. Therefore, from this point of view, compared with the Trump era, the Biden administration's arms sales to Taiwan are relatively restrained. This also reflects, to some extent, that the Biden administration does not want to gamble and take risks on the Taiwan issue.
In particular, the amount of this arms sale to Taiwan is very small, only a mere $100 million, which can be said to be one of the smallest number of US arms sales to Taiwan in recent years; second, the nature of the arms sales is of a defensive nature, because the Patriot missile is a typical defensive weapon; third, unlike previous US arms sales to Taiwan, this $100 million arms sale does not involve the United States providing new weapons and equipment to Taiwan, but only the logistics service of the Patriot missile to support repair and maintenance. That is to say, in the past, the Patriot missiles sold by the United States to Taiwan were all sent to the United States for testing, maintenance and maintenance, and after the implementation of this arms sale case, the Patriot missiles sold by the United States to Taiwan did not have to be sent back to the United States for maintenance and maintenance, but instead the United States sent technicians to Taiwan to complete these follow-up work, so as to save the time of maintenance and maintenance, so that the combat effectiveness of Taiwan's Patriot missiles can be maintained. Therefore, the Tsai Ing-wen authorities exaggerated the significance of this arms sale, and whistled at night in the cemetery – fearing that they were emboldened.
Straight News: So what kind of political and military calculations do you think is behind the Biden administration's choice to announce a new round of arms sales to Taiwan at this juncture?
Special Commentator Liu Heping: In fact, the US side should maintain and maintain the Patriot missiles sold to Taiwan, which has long been within the expectations of the outside world, and the US side has already agreed when it sold the Taiwan Patriot missiles. The US arms sales plan involving $100 million was also an application made by the Tsai Ing-wen authorities to the US side long ago. However, the Biden administration did not announce it early or late, but announced this plan at this time, and I think that the timing behind this is still very exquisite, and it is intended to send some political and military signals through this action.
First of all, the timing of the announcement of this arms sale is during the Beijing Winter Olympics, which runs counter to the spirit of peace and fraternity advocated by the Olympic Games. This can also be seen as another unfriendly move by the Biden administration after calling for a "diplomatic boycott" of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Second, this arms sale to Taiwan occurred when Sino-US relations and cross-strait relations have not yet improved, especially when cross-strait military confrontation is still ongoing.
What is particularly noteworthy is that this arms sale to Taiwan also occurred against the background of high tensions between Russia and Ukraine, and the US side believes that Russia may launch a large-scale military attack on Ukraine in the near future or even occupy Ukraine in an all-round way. The tension in Russia and Ukraine has also made the situation in the Taiwan Strait highly concerned by international observers. There is even such a conspiracy theory in the outside world, saying that Chinese mainland may seize the favorable tactical opportunity to "reunify" Taiwan in one fell swoop when Russia attacks Ukraine. At this time, the United States will fall into the embarrassing situation of burning at both ends of the Eastern European battlefield and the Taiwan Strait battlefield, and the two ends cannot be taken into account. At the same time, the outside world is also judging through Biden's reaction to the situation in Russia and Ukraine to determine whether the United States will really send troops to "assist" in the defense of Taiwan in the future. I think it is precisely under these circumstances that the Biden administration has had to announce a new round of arms sales to Taiwan while the situation between Russia and Ukraine is still highly tense. Its purpose is undoubtedly to send such a signal to the outside world that the United States attaches more importance to the Taiwan issue than the Ukrainian issue. That is to say, the Biden administration wants to send a big signal to the outside world with a small order for arms sales to Taiwan of only $100 million.
Straight News: We have seen that in response to the biden administration's new round of arms sales to Taiwan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National Defense have successively expressed strong dissatisfaction and protest to the US side. What do you think about this?
Special Commentator Liu Heping: I have noticed that for this round of US arms sales to Taiwan, the response of this Chinese mainland has two differences from the past that are not easy to be detected by the outside world.
One is that in the past, whether it was the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or the Ministry of Defense, they would focus on targeting the Tsai Ing-wen administration, rather than just the United States. This time, however, in addition to the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, which specializes in Taiwan, criticized the Tsai Ing-wen administration for colluding with external forces to seek "independence" provocations, both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National Defense aimed their criticism at the Biden administration in the United States, and basically did not criticize the Tsai Ing-wen administration much.
The second difference is that in the past, when Chinese mainland criticized the Tsai Ing-wen administration, they focused on expressing political positions and principles, as well as issuing harsh warnings against them. This time, however, Wu Qian, spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense, made a very rare case with the Tsai Ing-wen authorities, that is, Taiwan's future lies in national reunification, and Taiwan's security depends on the joint efforts of compatriots on both sides of the strait under the one-China principle, and is by no means a US arms sale to Taiwan. The subtext behind this is undoubtedly to hope and advise the Tsai Ing-wen administration to abandon its dependence on US weapons and return to the correct track of political settlement of the cross-strait issue, that is, to recognize the "1992 Consensus" of the one-China principle. Then, it is recalled that at the Current Winter Olympics, the Tsai Ing-wen authorities changed their attitude to let the "Chinese Taipei Team" attend the opening ceremony, and the relevant staff did not refer to the "Chinese Taipei Team" as the "Chinese Taipei Team" at the opening ceremony, and in addition, When receiving former Kuomintang Chairman Hong Xiuzhu, Wang Yang, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, expressed his willingness to carry out extensive and in-depth dialogue, communication, and democratic consultation with various parties, groups, and personalities in Taiwan on issues related to cross-strait relations on the basis of adhering to the one-China principle and the "1992 Consensus." All this information seems to indicate that the two sides of the strait may be cooling the tense situation in the Taiwan Strait and creating a relatively good political and public opinion atmosphere for the thawing of cross-strait relations before Tsai Ing-wen steps down. Let's wait and see.
The author 丨 Liu Heping, special commentator of Shenzhen Satellite TV's "Live Broadcasting hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan"