Why it’s mind-boggling that Trump may have offered weapons to China: U.S. ambassador to China David Perdue’s shocking statement Sunday to Fox News that President Donald Trump has asked Chinese President Xi Jinping if he wanted to buy American weapons has spurred denials from Trump. But regardless of what exactly happened, Perdue’s claim speaks to something profoundly amiss in the Trump administration’s approach to navigating U.S.-Chinese relations.
Let’s consider the possibility that Perdue was accurately conveying something that happened. While discussing Xi’s state visit to Washington last week, Perdue said on Fox that Trump and Xi talked about U.S. arms sales to Taiwan — a long-running point of frustration for Beijing, as China opposes Taiwanese independence. Perdue, summarizing what he described as Trump’s attempt to coax Xi into relaxing about sales to Taiwan, claims Trump told Xi, “Hey, we sell arms to other people around the world,” and that Trump allegedly then “actually asked President Xi, would he like to buy some at one point?”
This scenario, if true, is mind-boggling. And if Perdue’s claims are not true and he was saying something false, that’s a significant and confounding problem, too, because it would not just be a major lie, but a foolish one. (The White House and State Department statements to The New York Times did not deny that Trump made the claims, but said that there is currently no offer or plan to sell arms to China.)
It would not make sense to boost Beijing’s arsenal.
China is the only country in the world that threatens the U.S.’ status as the world’s preeminent military power, and the U.S. takes great pains to guard its technological edge against its rivals. (This is why it is a huge deal that sensitive F-35 fighter jet technology was reportedly somehow recently diverted to Hong Kong.) Selling highly coveted U.S. arms to China would undermine the U.S.’ military advantage. It is common sense to not empower a country that lands on the opposite side of a lot of global geopolitical jockeying. Given that, for example, Trump asked Xi to curb assistance to… https://www.ms.now/opinion/trump-sell-arms-china-offer-ambassador-perdue