Arms Deal With Taiwan

With many government programs being cut do to the effort to cut costs and reduce the deficit, its not hard to see why the United States made a deal with Taiwan regarding an arms deal. The United States is always in search of news ways to increase its revenue, and this is just what it is doing with a $6.4 billion arms deal with Taiwan. The United States is selling 30 Black Hawk helicopters, 112 advanced Patriot air defense missiles, a pair of mine hunting ships, and dozens of advanced communications systems to Taiwan. And which country is most against this sale? China. Actually, China's protest seems to have a reasonable root, which regards the legitimacy of Taiwan as a sovereign entity which should be able to buy arms. Interestingly enough, neither China nor the United States has recognized Taiwan as a sovereign nation. China complains that because Taiwan does have some sense of hostility towards the large, mainland nation, the arms deal actually interferes with their national security. The only thing that is good regarding the arms deal for China is the fact that it does not include F-16 fighter planes. These were the items that Taiwan wanted, and China fervently did not want Taiwan to have. In this sense, the United States compromised in its deal, to make both Taiwan and China have a positive image of the deal. It seems to me that this is a strange deal to push forward when we are already asking China to sign on to a more harsh policy regarding Iran and their nuclear weapons program. Why not wait until China signed on to the new policy regarding Iran before selling arms to Taiwan? If this ruins any kind of relations between China and the United States, much blame will be put upon the State Department. After all, when it comes to international relations, trust is often more important than making a quick buck for one's country. The link to the article is here.