China says cooperation with United States threatened by proposed arms sale to Taiwan

Word from Beijing is that China is "strongly indignant" and threatening to disrupt ties if the United States goes ahead with a planned $6.4 billion sale of advanced armaments to Taiwan. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei said Saturday that Beijing considers the proposed sale of Black Hawk helicopters, advanced Patriot missiles and other equipment to be "crude interference in China's domestic affairs and seriously harm China's national security," according to the Reuters international news service. "The United States' announcement of the planned weapons sales to Taiwan will have a seriously negative impact on many important areas of exchanges and cooperation between the two countries," He said in remarks given to the U.S. ambassador and published on the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Web site. "This will lead to repercussions that neither side wishes to see." China considers Taiwan to be a breakaway province, but Western nations know it is where the Nationalist Chinese fled after being defeated by the Communist Chinese in 1949, and is now a democratic nation of 23 million. But it has been a source of friction between the China and the United States for 60 years, since Beijing wants to incorporate it into the mainland and the United States has pledged to defend its independence. In fact, the United States refused to recognize the People's Republic of China until 1979, eight years after Beijing replaced Taiwan at the United Nations. U.S. officials said Taiwan needed the advanced armaments to strengthen its position in negotiations with China, particularly since a "thaw" in relations that began in 2008, Reuters said. Despite all the rhetoric, it is difficult to see how the sale of arms to Taiwan affects the relationship between China and United States, except to make Beijing a little uncomfortable. In 2008, when Washington sold $6.5 billion worth of weapons to Taiwan, and Beijing reacted by delaying a meeting on military cooperation with the United States. But Washington and Beijing are too intertwined economically to let even this do more than perhaps delay their burgeoning cooperation in financial and military sectors. There are simply too many advantages to such cooperation to turn back now.

What's going on with Google and China?

Is Google doing the bidding of the U.S. government by threatening to leave China, ostensibly in a dispute over Beijing's efforts to censor content on the Internet? It might as well be, since last week's surprise announcement by the Internet search giant suggests many of the responsibilities the United States expects China to voluntarily accept as a world superpower. Of course, the most important among them is to stop jailing political opponents and otherwise mistreating its citizenry. Good luck with that, right? But it does demonstrate to China the urgency and complexity of good world citizenship. Google's threat -- so far not implemented -- already has affected relations between China and the United States, and not in a good way, according to the Reuters international news service. Top officials in the Obama administration called Google's announcement "a big deal," Reuters said. China has not commented officially on Google's threat, which the company said was in reaction to censorship of its Web sites from Beijing and to a series of cyber attacks emanating from China. But Google and other U.S. companies have done Beijing's bidding for years, even allowing the Chinese government to use their servers to track down dissidents. And the U.S. government has seemingly gone along with it. But now, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke called Google's concerns about Internet security in China "troubling." "The administration encourages the government of China to work with Google and other U.S. companies to ensure a climate for secure commercial operations in the Chinese market," Locke said. Of course, the new U.S. focus could be due to the change of administrations in Washington, even though Obama government officials spent last year trying to make Beijing comfortable with lending $800 billion to Washington. Lately, however, the United States has angered China by agreeing to sell sophisticated weaponry to Taiwan, agreeing to meet with the Dalai Lama and putting tariffs on some of China's exports. Reporters Without Borders, a press freedom group that had criticized Google in the past for complying with Beijing's demands, applauded the Silicon Valley company for what it called "standing up to the Chinese authorities."

Taiwan government should survive turmoil over typhoon response

Monday's resignation by Taiwan's premier is not expected to alter the current administration's focus on better ties with China, according to the Reuters international news service. More cabinet ministers are expected to resign in the furor of what most see as a botched response to devastation wrought by Typhoon Morakot, which struck the island over three days in August and killed 758 people. Torrential rains caused massive landslides that buried villages in the southern islands, Reuters said. President Ma Ying-jeou accepted the resignation of Premier Liu Chao-shiuan and appointed Wu Den-yih, another top Nationalist Party official, to replace him. "I'm the top administrator and all of the political responsibility rests on my shoulders, so I offered my resignation to the president, and he agreed," Liu said, according to Reuters. Ma has faced severe criticism over his government's disaster response efforts, but mostly for remarks he made after the disaster that appeared to blame residents of the six affected counties for not being adequately prepared. Wu said at a news conference that he would pursue Ma's policies of stronger economic ties with Beijing, Taiwan's rival since the 1949 revolution that brought the Chinese Communist Party to power in the mainland. The Nationalist Party fled offshore to nearby Taiwan, where it now rules an island nation of 23 million. China maintains that Taiwan is a renegade province and frequently threatens to recapture the island by force. Taiwan's ruling party was considered by many Western nations, including the United States, to be the legitimate rulers of mainland China until 1971, when the United Nations transferred its seat to the Communist government. Taiwan's vice-premier, Paul Chiu, also resigned Monday and was replaced by another party official, Chu Li-lun. Hsu Yung-ming, a political science professor at Soochow University in Taipei, Taiwan's capital, told Reuters it was customary in Taiwan for the premier to resign in such a circumstance.