The problem with de facto recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign state is that China isn’t bluffing.
The US government has approved an $80 million arms transfer to Taiwan under a program normally reserved for sovereign nations – a move likely to anger Beijing, which considers the island part of its own territory.
The State Department informed relevant lawmakers of the upcoming weapons sale on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press and Reuters, which obtained a copy of the congressional notification.
The transfer “will be used to strengthen Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities through joint and combined defense capability and enhanced maritime domain awareness and maritime security capability,” the department said, without naming any particular systems.
Though prior deals with Taipei have been carried out under different export authorities, the latest transfer is slated to go through the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program. Past FMF sales have largely been made to full-fledged nation states, with the sole exception of the African Union, and language used in the new notification could imply sovereignty for Taiwan, a stance China is unlikely to accept.
This is more of Clown World’s very clever wordgames that no one could possibly ever see through or object to. After all, the USA isn’t formally recognizing Taiwanese sovereignty, it’s merely treating Taiwan as if it is a sovereign state. That will totally fool everyone! And if Xi and the People’s Liberation Army choose to react to the de facto recognition in the place of the de jure recogition, well, joke’s on them!
When did retarded children take over US foreign policy?