China's Defense Ministry yesterday blamed the United States for its arms
sales to Taiwan, saying it was strongly discontented and firmly opposed to the
recent comments from the US side on bilateral military ties.
Ministry spokesman Huang Xueping said China had noticed a Pentagon
spokesman's recent comments on US-China military ties, referring to Stuart
Upton's remarks on Monday that Washington's arms sales were consistent with the
Taiwan Relations Act.
Upton added "uncertainty over the motivations and direction of China's
military expansion leads others to hedge," and "this could lead to a security
environment less favorable to China's interests, the region's, and our own."
"We are strongly dissatisfied and opposed to the Pentagon spokesman's
remarks. The so-called 'Taiwan Relations Act' severely runs counter to the
principles of the three Sino-US joint communiques and the fundamental norms
governing international relations," Huang said.
He added the United States had no right to place domestic law above
international laws, or use it as an excuse to sell weapons to Taiwan.
"The US side carped at China's rightful national defense building, which was
totally confounding right and wrong to mislead the public."
Huang said China firmly takes the road of peaceful development and follows an
independent foreign policy of peace and a national defense policy that is
defensive in nature.
"China develops limited defense power with an aim to safeguard national
sovereignty, security and territorial integrity," he said. "We had made solemn
undertakings to the world time and again that China would never seek hegemony or
expansionism, nor an arms race."
China's development serves as active force to promote world and regional
peace and poses no threat to anybody, Huang added.
The US government, in spite of China's repeated solemn representations,
notified Congress on Friday about its plan to sell arms to Taiwan, including
Patriot III anti-missile system, E-2T airborne early warning aircraft upgrade
system, Apache helicopters and other equipment.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei has summoned the charge d'affaires of
the US Embassy to China to raise strong protest against the move. The Foreign
Ministry had earlier expressed strong condemnation over the US decision.