Fresh from their 11-day standoff over a midair crash, the US and China may be headed for worse bumps over arms sales to Taiwan, Chinese and US experts said on Thursday.
President Bush's decision on which arms requests he will grant is set to be disclosed to a visiting team from Taiwan on or about April 24 at the end of an annual process driven by US law.
Taiwan has requested its most potent package yet, including four destroyers equipped with the Aegis combat system, diesel-electric submarines and an advanced Patriot anti-missile defense known as PAC-3, according to US congressional staff.
Despite strong Chinese objections, the administration appeared to be headed for a major package -- minus the Aegis -- even before the April 1 collision of a Navy EP-3E Aries II reconnaissance plane and a Chinese F-8 interceptor highlighted US-Chinese rivalry in East Asia and the Pacific.
Anger in Congress over the crew's 11-day detention after an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island is boosting pressure on Bush to take a harder line on the highly charged weapons issue.
Senator John McCain of Arizona, an Armed Services panel member who challenged Bush for the Republican presidential nomination and could do so again in 2004, said the belated freeing of the 24 US crew members had done nothing to bury doubts over China's commitment to "international norms of behavior."
"We must avoid at all costs giving Chinese leaders the impression they will profit by challenging America's global responsibilities," he said in a statement Wednesday night.
Ronald Montaperto, academic dean of the Defense Department's Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, said lawmakers would read the incident as showing that Taiwan is in "even more danger than we thought -- and therefore we should give them a really robust package."
But both he and Harvey Feldman, a retired State Department China-Taiwan expert and a former US ambassador to the UN, predicted Bush would stop short of transferring the Aegis, the focus of China's current concern.
Taiwan is also seeking four Kidd-class destroyers as a possible stepping stone to Aegis-equipped Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
Montaperto predicted Bush would authorize the Kidd-class ships, which were built for the late shah of Iran. Never delivered after the shah's fall, they could be supplied almost immediately, unlike the Aegis ships, which could take eight or more years to build and put into service.
Taiwan is also seeking up to 70 Boeing AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters, Harpoon anti-ship missiles, HARM anti-radiation missiles and eight to 12 Lockheed Martin P-3 maritime search and anti-submarine aircraft.
Under Section 3 (b) of the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, the US is committed to supplying weapons "in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability."
Beijing has singled out as a particularly egregious affront to its sovereignty the Aegis system, which might provide the basis for a shield against China's short-range ballistic missile buildup aimed at buttressing threats to take Taiwan by force if necessary.
"If the US sells Aegis it would trigger a very harsh reaction," said Shulong Chu, an expert on China-US ties at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, in Beijing.
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