Last August, the U.S. State Department approved an arms sale to Taiwan for about $750 million, the first arms sale to Taiwan since the Biden administration took office. After only 6 months, Biden has done the same evil deeds again. On February 7, local time, the US State Department announced that it had approved the sale of a $100 million, five-year engineering service plan for the Patriot missile system to Taiwan, which was also the second arms sale to Taiwan since Biden took office.
We know that during the tenure of former US President George H.W. Bush, he sold 150 F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan in one go, and during the four years that the previous US President Trump took office, he sold as many as 11 arms sales to Taiwan, and the total value of the "arms trade" reached 18.3 billion US dollars. From a certain point of view, arms sales to Taiwan can be regarded as a "compulsory course" for successive US presidents. However, from the overall point of view, the total order amount of arms sales to Taiwan can only be regarded as a scattered "small money" for the huge military-industrial complex of the United States.
To sum up in a concise and concise manner, the direct purpose of the Americans is to maintain as much as possible the balance of the military level between the two sides of the strait through the method of selling weapons to Taiwan from time to time, so as to maintain the status quo of cross-strait relations and obstruct China's complete reunification. As for the deep-seated purpose, it is an attempt to play the "Taiwan card" for a long time, so that the Taiwan issue can serve the strategic interests of the United States itself, so as to maintain a strong presence in the Asia-Pacific region and hinder China's external projection of influence through the Pacific.
Judging from the current balance of forces between the two sides of the strait, the direct purpose of the US government has basically failed completely. Whether it is the size of the economy or the size of the military, the mainland of the motherland is far stronger than Taiwan, and even if the White House exports more weapons and equipment to Taiwan, it will be difficult to stop the tilt of the balance of strength. At this point, even many American think tanks and other institutions have long acknowledged it.
As for the deep purpose, Americans are actually not so effective in achieving it. First of all, we should make it clear that the initiative in the cross-strait situation has never been in the hands of the US side, let alone in the hands of the Taiwan authorities, but firmly in the hands of the mainland of the motherland. As far as we are concerned, "when and in which way the two sides of the strait will be reunified" is not a question of whether we can or not, but whether we want to or not.
It is not difficult to find from the contents of the US Government's arms sales to Taiwan in recent years that the weapons and equipment it sells to Taiwan are becoming more and more "conservative," that is, it is becoming more and more difficult to call them advanced. There are probably two reasons for this situation: First, the LEVEL of equipment of the PLA is getting higher and higher, and many weapons have long been no less than those of Western military powers, and have even begun to lead the world, erasing the advanced nature of US-made weapons; second, the Americans are also worried that the US-made equipment in the hands of the Taiwan military will one day fall into the hands of the PLA. Considering China's amazing reverse engineering capabilities, which are jokingly called "getting pregnant at a glance", the US side naturally does not dare to sell the latest and best equipment to Taiwan.
From this point of view, Taiwan's "actual use value" to the United States is depreciating day by day, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for the United States to become an "effective tool" for the United States to contain China's rise and development, and even begins to become the weakest link in the "first island chain". Under the burst of China's comprehensive national strength, the so-called "island chain strategy" of the United States is also gradually bankrupt.
Here, it is also necessary to talk about the "Taiwan Relations Act" mentioned by the US State Department in its statement. This infamous "Taiwan Relations Act" is a U.S. domestic law signed into effect on April 10, 1979 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, with the aim of maintaining the so-called "official and military relations" between the U.S. and Taiwan authorities in disguise in the form of U.S. domestic legislation.
As we know, in the three Sino-US joint communiques, the United States has emphasized upholding the "one-China" principle, and the "one-China" principle has a solid basis for international law. That is to say, the "Taiwan Relations Act" is a matter of its own words, challenging the legitimate status of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China, and even challenging international law and the legitimate international order, and even more is a disguised renegade on its word and a disguised attempt to overturn its commitment to the new Chinese government.
It can be said that the "Taiwan Relations Act" is a complete "freak" and belongs to the US government's "punch in the face." The reason why it was introduced was inseparable from the farce of the US presidential election at that time. The united States and China resumed normal relations in January 1979, but the matter was opposed by "anti-communist and pro-Chiang" forces in the United States, especially Republicans who exerted great pressure on Jimmy Carter. In order to eliminate negative voices and prepare for the 1980 presidential election, Carter proposed and finally signed this bill, which is completely contrary to the three Sino-US joint communiques, and it has also become the so-called "supreme treasure book" for the "Taiwan independence" elements on the island to repeatedly provoke the mainland of the motherland.
Today's US government is still going its own way, ignoring the diplomatic relations between The two world-class powers and stubbornly walking on the road of undermining Sino-US relations. It can only be said that the deeper the degree to which the United States offends the Chinese side on the Taiwan issue, the greater the price it will have to pay in the future.