China has warned the United States that there will be “counter-measures” unless the Biden administration revokes it $1.1billion arms sales deal to Taiwan.
On Friday the US on announced the arms package for Taiwan, including missiles to destroy ships and aircraft, and vowed to keep boosting the island’s defenses as tensions soar with Beijing,
The Mail Online reports: China, calling Taiwan an ‘inalienable’ part of its territory, said the United States to should ‘immediately revoke’ the arms sales.
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‘It sends wrong signals to “Taiwan independence” separatist forces and severely jeopardizes China-US relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,’ said Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington.
‘China will resolutely take legitimate and necessary counter-measures in light of the development of the situation,’ he said.
The sale comes a month after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defiantly visited the self-governing democracy, prompting mainland China to launch a show of force that could be a trial run for a future invasion.
The package — the largest for Taiwan approved under President Joe Biden’s administration — includes $665 million for contractor support to maintain and upgrade a Raytheon early radar warning system in operation since 2013 that would warn Taiwan about an incoming attack.
Taiwan will also spend some $355 million to buy 60 Harpoon Block II missiles which can track and sink incoming vessels if China launches an assault by water.
The arms also include $85.6 million for more than 100 Sidewinder missiles, a mainstay of Western militaries for their air-to-air firepower.
The announcement comes one day after Taiwanese forces shot down an unidentified commercial drone amid a sudden spate of mysterious incursions that have unnerved the island following the earlier show of force by Beijing, which said it fired ballistic missiles over the capital Taipei.
A spokesperson for the State Department, which approved the sale, said the package was ‘essential for Taiwan’s security’ and stressed that the United States still recognized only Beijing and not Taipei.
