US should not mistake restraint for weakness

This is an editorial from China Daily.

Although the sanctions the United States has imposed on Chinese entities citing baseless "national security" concerns have had a substantial impact on China's high-tech research and industry, Beijing has shown restraint with its countermeasures, both in terms of their number and the damage they can do the US.

On Sunday, Beijing announced sanctions on five US defense-related companies — BAE Systems Land and Armaments, Alliant Techsystems Operations, AeroVironment, Viasat, and Data Link Solutions — in response to the US' recent unwarranted sanctions on several Chinese companies and individuals and its $300-million arms sales to the Taiwan island in December.

The US' arms sales to the Chinese island are in blatant violation of the one-China principle and the stipulations of the three China-US joint communiques that are the foundation for Sino-US ties, and the illegal unilateral sanctions the US has imposed on Chinese entities under various false pretexts seriously harm China's sovereignty and security interests.

China's sanction measures consist of freezing the properties of the five companies in China, including their movable and immovable property, and prohibiting organizations and individuals in China from having transactions and cooperation with them, according to a statement of the Foreign Ministry.

However, like those it has announced before, the Chinese sanctions are mostly symbolic, as the US defense contractors have few deals related to or partnership with the Chinese mainland. But this should not be misunderstood as China not having the capability to inflict damage on the US side, it does. However, in responding to the US' provocations, Beijing always bears the bigger picture in mind.

As Foreign Minister Wang Yi stressed on Friday at a ceremony in Beijing marking the 45th anniversary of the founding of Sino-US relations, the most essential feature of China-US exchanges is they are mutually beneficial. That means that if China responded to the US' sanctions and provocations by adopting an equivalence approach, the two countries would be swiftly dragged into a dog-eat-dog regression of history. The rest of the world would soon follow.

The US' long-term "strategic ambiguity" on the Taiwan question does not give it an upper hand in playing the so-called Taiwan card with Beijing. Instead, it puts the US at grave risk of an open conflict with China.

Taiwan is a dispensable piece on Washington's board but an inalienable part of the country to Beijing, whose resolve to realize national reunification, at all cost, should never be underestimated. That is something the secessionist-minded Democratic Progressive Party politicians of Taiwan taking part in the local election on the island later this month should bear in mind. They should not harbor the illusion that the US will "protect" Taiwan in case of an "emergency".

The mutual benefits reaped over the past 45 years show that disagreements and differences should not be allowed to dominate or interfere with Sino-US ties. The potential of their cooperative relations continues to expand, and their differences were even more prominent 45 years ago than they are today.