The billion-dollar U.S. arms sale to Taiwan serves no good to relations across the Taiwan Strait and Washington should end the troublemaking arrangement once and for all.
The U.S. State Department on Wednesday notified Congress of a 1.83-billion U.S. dollar deal to sell two Perry-class guided-missile frigates, anti-tank missiles, AAV-7 amphibious assault vehicles, Stinger surface-to-air missiles and other military equipment to Taiwan despite Beijing's strong opposition.
It has been 33 years since Washington agreed to gradually scale back and eventually stop its sale of arms to Taiwan.
In what are collectively known as the three China-U.S. joint communiques, the political groundwork of the relations between the two countries, Washington officially endorsed the one China policy, and agreed therein to respect China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity and refrain from infringing on them.
Regrettably, the U.S. arms sales have yet to see its long due end, thus, it has failed to make good on its promises, complicated cross-Strait ties and called into question whether the U.S., a self-branded world peacekeeper, is so keen on peace across the Strait after all.
Washington bases its arms sales to Taiwan on a fallacy of protecting the island from so-called military threat from the Chinese mainland.
By doing so it is deliberately ignoring Beijing's unmistakable stance on the issue -- the peaceful reunification of the motherland.
In fact, the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, after sailing through decades of military confrontation and division, have seen significant warming-up in ties since 2008.
The years that followed have witnessed the most peaceful and steady period in the 66-year history of cross-Strait relations, with regular peaceful consultations, bundles of trade deals signed and an increase of people-to-people exchanges.
Just last month, Xi Jinping and Ma Ying-jeou met in Singapore in the first meeting between leaders of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait since 1949, a milestone in cross-Strait relations.
Washington's 1.83-billion-dollar deal serves nothing but to strangle that hard-won momentum. It has tossed bullets into hands that were held out for olive branches.
Such a move puts Washington in an awkward position for reneging on its commitments on the Taiwan issue.
Previous U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have played no positive part in improving cross-Strait ties, and have been detrimental to the overall China-U.S. relationship.
Those keen to stir up trouble in the Taiwan Strait should bear in mind that China has unshakable determination to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
In the journey to establish a new type of major country relations, China and the U.S. should follow the principles of win-win cooperation, respect each other's core interests and major concerns and properly handle differences via dialogues and negotiations.
