China's defence ministry is insisting that full military-to-military exchanges with the US cannot resume unless Washington scraps plans to sell more than $6bn worth of advanced weapons to Taiwan and stops contacts with the democratic island's armed forces.
The strong line from Major General Qian Lihua, director of the ministry's foreign affairs office, suggests the Chinese military is determined to ensure that the US pays a price for a decision last month to sell Taipei arms, including Patriot air defence missiles, Apache helicopters and F-16 spare parts.
China cancelled a series of military exchanges with the Pentagon after the decision by the outgoing administration of George W. Bush to approve the long-delayed sale, setting back a fragile warming of relations be-tween the US military and China's People's Liberation Army.
Oh please, punish us by cutting off military-to-military contacts. These contacts teach us little about the Chinese military and just provide the Chinese with the knowledge they need to believe they can beat us.
