China says U.S. must stop selling Taiwan weapons

Taiwan bound.  The US is the world's largest arms dealer

The Chinese have urged the US to stop selling arms to Taiwan, Reuters reports.  If the US continues to do so, it will put the relations between the two companies "at risk" the Chinese government says.  

According to the ACA, "China, which claims Taiwan is the "most crucial and most sensitive issue" in its relations with the United States, maintains that U.S. arms sales to Taipei infringe on China's sovereignty because Washington acknowledges that Taiwan is part of China." China considers Taiwan a breakaway province. The announcement last year that the Obama administration was preparing to sell more weapons to Taiwan caused considerable friction. The Chinese unveiled a new stealth fighter that threatens to challenge US air superiority in the region giving ammunition to US politicians and the defense industry capitalists who want to resurrect funds for the F22 fighter. Talk about a never ending spiral, but the defense contractors love it.

The US is the largest dealer in weapons on the planet, selling more arms than the rest of the world combined and having about 46% of total global sales.  With Taiwan, the amount has varied each year from a high of almost $6.3 billion in 1993 to a low of $135 million in 2000 according to The Arms Control Association. (ACA)

The Chinese have been fairly diplomatic about it, "We urge the United States to ... stop selling arms to Taiwan and take concrete actions to support the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations. This is very important in upholding the overall interests of China-U.S. relations," said China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. Beijing has threatened to attack if the island tries to declare independence.

In order to look at this fairly we would have to consider it from someone else's point of view. Imagine if the Chinese were selling $300 million a year in arms to Cuba.  Or if Chinese and Cuban warships were having war games in the Caribbean or off the coast of California.  We are no supporters of the Chinese bureaucracy on this blog.  But we are no supporters of US capitalism either.  US foreign policy is a very destabilizing force around the globe. Islamic terrorist groups and Islamic fundamentalism in general has its roots in US foreign policy. The Saudi's and the Bahraini governments are both autocratic, ruthless dictatorships, absolute monarchies in their case, propped up and armed to the teeth by US capitalism.

The US admitted just a couple of days ago in the Wall Street Journal that the democratic rights of the population in the Middle East should be subordinated to the US interests in the region. Naturally, this creates hostility toward the US.  US capitalism's support of Sadaam Hussein; its overthrow of the secular democratic regime of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and installation of the Shah, its support for all the dictators in the region on behalf of the oil industry is a destabilizing factor along with its uncritical support of Israel.

The great curse of nationalism and patriotic thinking is that as workers of a nation our interests are the same as the capitalists of a nation; and the capitalists rule society.  It's the Team Concept on a national scale.  It does not serve the interests of American workers to support US to foreign policy on Taiwan.
And it serves our interests as workers to oppose US foreign policy that subordinates the democratic rights and aspirations of workers in other countries to the interests of the Chevron corporation and the  billionaires that run it.

I was reading today that Forbes' richest man in the world is the Mexican, Carlos Slim for the second year in a row.  I saw that Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City is on the list worth some $20 billion.

I am convinced that very few workers really believe that the mayor of the city they live in who is worth billions of  dollars will govern with their interests at heart. Workers may not know what to do about it but I don't believe they're fooled by it.