'A huge shock': Why Trump selling fighter jets designed in the 1970s spooks China
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The potential sale is among several gestures of US support for Taiwan in recent months, even as President Donald Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping near a deal to end the costly trade war. The US also sailed a warship through the Taiwan Strait and accommodated President Tsai Ing-wen’s stopover in Hawaii last week, drawing protests from China, which denounced the moves as “extremely dangerous.”
Growing calls
Renewed US interest in Taiwan follows growing calls in Washington for a “whole-of-government” effort to prevent China from surpassing American military and industrial dominance. Perhaps nowhere has the power shift been felt more than on Taiwan, an island of 23.6 million people that China aims to eventually control despite 70 years of divided rule.
China has directed its industrial strength toward huge investments in military hardware over the past two decades, building a world-class navy and filling its coastline with missiles capable of hitting Taiwanese targets. The country spent 23 times more than Taiwan on defense in 2017, up from double in 1997.
New F-16s won’t “change the fundamental balance of capabilities across the strait, nor will it eliminate the threat that China poses to forcibly absorb a democratic Taiwan,” said Scott Harold, an associate director of Rand Corp.’s Center for Asia Pacific Policy.
Article source: http://smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/what-will-tech-and-media-entrepreneur-justin-milne-do-with-our-old-abc-20170321-gv2scb.html
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