Poking The Dragon

China "indignant" on U.S. arms sales to Taiwan
Excerpts From Reuters:

China has said it will impose unspecified sanctions on U.S. firms selling weapons to Taiwan in retaliation for the U.S. announcement that it planned to sell $6.4 billion of arms to Taiwan, which Beijing considers a breakaway province.

"The Chinese government and people feel indignant about this," Yang told a security conference in Germany. "I do hope the U.S. will change its behavior ... and will stop arms sales to Taiwan."

"What China has done is very reasonable and what any dignified people would do," he added.

Beijing has claimed sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong's communist forces won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek's KMT fled to the island.

China has threatened to attack if Taiwan tries to formalize its de facto independence.

"We approached the U.S. side very seriously on many occasions. Yet the U.S. went ahead and forced the Chinese government and people to react. We think it is our sovereign right to do what is necessary," Yang said.

Excerpts From Xinhau News:
China reiterates opposition against planned Obama-Dalai meeting

BEIJING, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- China on Friday reiterated its "constant and clear" stance of opposing the Dalai Lama's visit to the United States and any contact between the monk and U.S. leaders.

China has lodged solemn representation to the U.S. after White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs indicated Thursday that the Dalai Lama will visit the White House and meet with President Barack Obama later this month, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement.

"China resolutely opposes the visit by the Dalai Lama to the United States, and resolutely opposes U.S. leaders having contact with the Dalai Lama," Ma said, noting such a position is "constant and clear."

Hong Kong: Days ahead of the upcoming Chinese New Year — which marks the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese zodiac — China’s military leaders have sounded a roar of warning to the US, by raising the prospect of an ‘economic war’ by dumping China’s holdings of US treasury bonds.


From China to US: Beware of our $ bomb!
Venkatesan Vembu / DNA
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 23:57 IST


Such an eventuality, which some commentators have called the monetary
equivalent of ‘dropping the nuclear bomb’, would almost certainly trigger
economic turmoil
— and trigger a collapse of the US dollar.

But economists told DNA that the generals’ ‘threat’ would be virtually
impossible to deliver without harming China,
and was only political bombast
without an understanding of its economic repercussions.

In any case, the Army has no influence on how China’s foreign exchange
reserve holdings are deployed, they added. The tough talk from three military
officers — Major Generals Zhu Chenghu and Luo Yuan, and Colonel Ke Chungqio —
came in the context of China’s angry responses to a recent US decision to sell
arms to Taiwan, the de facto independent island over which China claims
territorial sovereignty.

Luo, a researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences, was quoted as telling
the official Outlook Weekly that China should retaliate against the US — but
not just militarily.

“We should go in for a strategic mix of retaliation across politics, military
matters, diplomacy and economics… For example, we could sanction them using
economic means, such as by dumping some US government bonds.”


Comments:

The United States is playing a dangerous game with China.  Selling arms to Taiwan, meeting the Dalai Lama and now wanting China to agree to tougher sanctions against Iran.

With the economic problems at home, perhaps our leaders could use their time more wisely rather than provoking the wrath of the dragon?

Today's reflection:
The prudent man saw the evil, and hid himself: the simple passed on, and suffered loss.
Proverbs 22:3
 Douay-Rheims

Comments

  1. Obama is pissed off because the BRICs didn't invite him to that global warming meeting in Copenhagen that he had to crash. He may have taken it as a racial affront. I thought about that myself, and I'm as white as you can get. Think about it. How many US Presidents were treated like that in the past? Clinton didn't like it either.

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