The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government asked the US to halt weapons sales to Taiwan in order to curry favor with Beijing ahead of last week’s cross-strait negotiations, the latest edition of Defense News reported.
The periodical on Monday quoted unnamed sources as saying the temporary freeze had been requested because the new government, worried by a troubled beginning to its term, feared the arms issue could jeopardize a promised deal on direct cross-strait flights and the entry of Chinese tourists — key platforms of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) election campaign.
However, experts quoted by Defense News were concerned that the freeze, originally intended for the duration of the cross-strait negotiations, could extend until a new administration is installed in the White House next year.
The magazine quoted Mark Stokes, the Pentagon’s country director for China and Taiwan from 1997 to 2004, as saying: “It’s the law of physics. Once you lose that momentum, it’s nearly impossible to get it back.”
News of the arms freeze, which Defense News broke on Monday last week, caused concern among opposition legislators and Taiwan’s supporters in the US, who believed the US government was trying to placate China ahead of US President George W. Bush’s expected trip to the Beijing Olympics.
But Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said on Friday that the party had discovered the KMT was behind the suspension, and demanded that the government explain to the public why it had abandoned arms procurements.
The freeze affects some US$12 billion in advanced weaponry that military experts say is crucial if Taiwan is to maintain a position of strength in negotiations with China.
Defense News also clarified its earlier report on elements in the US government that want arms sales to Taiwan ended. It quoted an unnamed US government official as saying that officials dubbed as “panda huggers” in the US embassy in Beijing, the US Treasury Department and the US State Department were conspiring to stop arms sales to Taipei independent of the KMT government’s agenda.
The official was quoted as saying the reasons included opening Chinese markets to US firms, sustaining the six-party talks with North Korea and the future private commercial interests of US officials.
Taiwan’s representative in Washington Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday there had been no disruption to the arms procurement process and that Taipei would maintain its policy of procuring weapons from the US.
Wu, who is set to be replaced as Taiwan’s envoy, said the government remained committed to acquiring the weapons.
“It is incorrect to say that the Bush administration has no intention of selling arms to Taiwan in the remainder of its term,” he said.
Meanwhile, the DPP yesterday alleged that a top US official visited the Presidential Office after Ma’s inauguration to meet National Security Council Secretary-General Su Chi (蘇起).
Cheng said Su told the official “point blank” that to improve cross-strait relations, arms procurements would have to be suspended.
The DPP said Ma was not present at the meeting.
The head of the party’s Department of International Affairs, Lin Chen-wei (林成蔚), said the Presidential Office should state whether Ma was aware of Su’s actions, and called on Ma to state his position on Su’s strategy.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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