China calls on the United States to revoke its arms sales plan to Taiwan

China’s Defense Ministry urged the United States to revoke its plan to sell weapons to Taiwan, after the US State Department authorized the possible sale of spare parts, components, supplies and accessories of the F-16 fighter jet to the island worth $300 million dollars.

Defense Ministry spokesman Zhang Xiaogang declared Friday that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan “seriously violate the ‘one China’ principle.”

Zhang noted that the transaction “undermines China’s sovereignty and security and represents” a serious threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” the ministry said in a statement.

The spokesman expressed his country’s “strong discontent” and its “firm opposition.”

The spokesperson stressed that the Taiwan issue is the “first red line that should not be crossed” in relations between China and the United States.

Zhang warned that “supporting Taiwanese separatist forces” will only “increase tension in the region, push Taiwan into a dangerous situation, and ultimately harm the United States.”

In a statement, the Ministry of National Defense (MDN) of Taiwan indicated this week that the purchase, which will be made official in approximately one month, includes general parts of the F-16 fighter for $220 million dollars and other specific ones for $80 million dollars.

The island’s Foreign Ministry, for its part, noted that this movement demonstrates that Washington’s “security commitment” to Taipei “is rock solid.”

This sale of US military equipment to Taiwan, the 14th under US President Joe Biden’s administration, is the first to be announced following the inauguration of William Lai (Lai Ching-te) as Taiwan’s new president.

The Lai Government, considered a “secessionist” and a “troublemaker” by the authorities in Beijing, was greeted with two days of military maneuvers by the Chinese Army around the island.

Taiwan – where the Chinese nationalist army withdrew after defeat at the hands of communist troops in the civil war – has been governed autonomously since the end of the war, although China claims sovereignty over the island, which it considers a rebel province for whose “reunification” the use of force has not been ruled out.

Taiwan issues are one of the main points of friction between Beijing and Washington, since the United States is Taipei’s main arms supplier and could defend the island in the event of conflict.

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