US Sells Taiwan Weapons, Expresses Shock When China Drills
China is holding military drills around Taiwan, including live-fire exercises, in response to the latest US arms deal with the self-governed island. Bloomberg paints this as China's unilateral 'move,' conveniently omitting Washington's decades-long 'One China' policy charade that simultaneously acknowledges Beijing's claim while actively arming Taiwan. It's a diplomatic tightrope act that would be
comical if it weren't so consistently used to justify massive weapon sales. One might wonder if America has a history of arming one side of a civil conflict and then being 'surprised' by the other side's response. The U.S. has sold Taiwan over $20 billion in arms since 2010 (as reported by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency), effectively ensuring a constant state of tension. Apparently, the
'self-run democracy' requires an endless supply of weaponry to defend itself from the exact provocation the weapons cause. And then we wonder why anyone finds our foreign policy contradictory.