China wants to sanction US firms selling arms to Taiwan

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In the latest move in its trade war with Washington, Beijing is looking to impose sanctions against US firms that have been selling military hardware to Taiwan.

China sees Taiwan as one of its own provinces, a province that will one day be reunified with the mainland. Taiwan says that it is a country entirely independent from China.

News of the sanctions threat comes shortly after Washington announced that it would sell $2.2 billion in missiles, tanks and other military hardware to Taiwan.

The deal does still need to be passed through US law makers, although it is not expected to face any opposition.

If the deal does get approved, China says that the US will have “severely violated the basic norms of international law and international relations.” Just what violations have occurred aren’t specified.

However, part of America’s ‘Taiwan Relations Act’, signed by US congress in 1979, states that “the United States will make available to Taiwan such defence articles and defence services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defence capabilities”

The recently announced $2.2 billion deal includes General Dynamics supplying Taiwan with just over 100 of its Abrams tanks. General Dynamics is the parent company of Gulfstream.

China has been one of the largest markets for Gulfstream outside of the aircraft’s home country, although in recent years sales growth has been slowing.

In its 2018 year-end fleet report, Asian Sky Group says that Gulfstream had a 34% share of the mainland China business jet fleet at the end of 2018. Gulfstream’s market share in greater China, which includes Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, was 40%.

In 2018 Gulfstream delivered 19 new business jets into greater China. Of those, 14 were delivered to operators on the mainland, four aircraft went to Hong Kong, with the remaining one aircraft delivered to an owner in Taiwan.

It is currently unclear if the sanctions would affect Gulfstream sales into China. When asked by Corporate Jet Investor, Gulfstream declined to comment. 

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