Taiwan as a bone of contention between China and the US
At the end of July, Beijing took a number of countermeasures against American military-industrial complex companies engaged in military-technical cooperation with Taipei. On July 25, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China announced restrictions against three subsidiaries of American corporation Lockheed Martin in accordance with the national Law on Countering Foreign Sanctions. It is especially about freezing in China the assets of Missile System Integration Lab, Advanced Technology Laboratories and Lockheed Martin Ventures, as well as the funds and property of the Lockheed Martin CEO James D. Taiclet, the COO Frank St. John and the CFO Jay Malave. According to the measures taken, named individuals are now banned from entering the PRC, including Hongkong and Macau. It should be noted that the current round of anti-US sanctions followed the Washington's approval of a number of contracts totaling $660 million for the sale of Altius 600M-V unmanned aerial vehicles, Switchblade 300 loitering munitions, spare parts for F-16 fighters and other related equipment. On this matter, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC made a statement pointing out that arms sales to Taiwan violate the "One China" principle and three China-US joint communiqués, constitute blatant interference in the country's internal affairs and undermine national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Additionally, a spokesman for the China's Ministry of National Defense demanded that the United States comply with the obligation not to support Taiwan's independence and stop arming the "rebellious province". Within two days after the restrictions were announced, 66 aircrafts of the People's Liberation Army Air Force entered the island's air defense identification zone, and some of them were 50 km away from the Taiwanese coast. In general, the Chinese sanctions seem to sound serious and threatening, but in reality, they are not. In particular, the restrictive measures are largely symbolic in nature, as the US companies of the military-industrial complex are already prohibited from doing business in China due to a long-standing government ban on exporting defense products and services to the country. Moreover, as far as we know, the Lockheed Martin's management has no assets in China, so trying to deprive this company of something it doesn't have is rather ridiculous. Therefore, the Chinese attempt to attack the US looks absurd. We see another weakness of the PRC in confronting America and its inability to take really tough measures to defend its national interests in the context of Taiwan. It may well be that the signal is indirectly addressed to the US civilian businesses, many of which still have extensive interests in China. The purpose of this is, among other things, to discourage them from potentially supplying Taipei with dual-use goods or implementing any technical assistance programs for the Taiwanese Armed Forces.