China Threatens U.S. Over Taiwan Arms Sale, War Games: ‘Hunting Rifles Ready Against the Wolves’ – By Paul D. Shinkman (US News) / Aug 6 2021
A $750 million arms sale to Taiwan has provoked outrage in Beijing, where officials promise to respond to new U.S.-led exercises in the region with ‘aircraft carrier killer’ weapons.
China on Friday fired back at the Biden administration’s announcement this week of a $750 million planned arms sale to Taiwan, calling the move a “vicious provocation” and vowing retaliation at a time of already heightened military tensions.
A story published Friday morning in China’s English-language Global Times added that the sale aligns “with a U.S. strategy to create trouble for China in the Indo-Pacific,” and said the new weapons and equipment “cannot tilt the military capacity gap across the Taiwan Straits.” The Global Times is considered a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party.
“China will resolutely take legitimate and necessary counter-measures,” it added, citing similar threats from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The arms sale announcement from the White House on Wednesday has been met with widespread support from Congress, all but guaranteeing its completion. It marks the first such sale for President Joe Biden, whose administration, like its predecessor, has made countering China its defining foreign policy challenge. The Pentagon’s top officer on Monday said China is contributing a “fundamental change to the character of war” amid an escalation in traditional threats and the rise of new ones, like cyberwarfare.
