The Pentagon on Friday approved the 6.4 billion-dollar sale of Patriot missiles, Black Hawk helicopters, mine-hunting ships and other weaponry to Taiwan, sparking furious protests from China.

But the US assistant secretary of defence for the Asia-Pacific region, Wallace Gregson, said Monday in a speech in Tokyo that the United States remained committed to helping Taiwan arm itself.

"The United States is... obligated to ensure Taiwan's self-defence capability, and the United States fully intends to meet every one of our obligations there, and we will continue to do so into the future," he said.

Gregson said that "we, the United States, have a very complex relationship with China. Our goal is to maintain a cordial, warm relationship with China, a cooperative relationship with China."

He added: "We do obviously have areas where we disagree. We try and separate the area where we disagree from the areas where we can work productively."

His comments came as China's state media accused Washington on Monday of "arrogance" and "double standards" in going ahead with the arms sales.

Taiwan split from the mainland at the end of China's civil war in 1949, but Beijing views the island of 23 million as part of its territory that must be reabsorbed. It has hundreds of missiles targeted against the island.

earlier related report
US urges China against sanctions
Washington (AFP) Feb 1, 2010 - The United States urged China on Monday not to slap sanctions on US companies selling arms to Taiwan, as the firms tried to stay out of President Barack Obama's biggest row yet with Beijing.

The Obama administration defended the arms sale as preserving the military balance between Taiwan and fast-growing China, which reacted furiously to a US announcement Friday it was selling the 6.4 billion dollars in weapons.

Beijing has always strongly opposed US sales to Taiwan, which it considers a Chinese territory awaiting reunification. But in a new step, China pledged to punish the US companies involved in the deal.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that Chinese sanctions "would not be warranted."

Gibbs said that Obama had spoken to Chinese leaders when he visited Beijing in November about the question of arms sales to Taiwan, and other issues.

"We've always said that we want the type of relationship where we're working together on important issues of mutual concern," Gibbs said.

"But when we have disagreements... we'll voice those disagreements out in the open, in public."

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the sale was consistent with longstanding US policy of only recognizing Beijing but of providing Taiwan with weapons to ward off a potential invasion.

"We think these defensive arms will contribute to security and stability across the Taiwan Strait," Crowley said.

"We regret the fact that they have suggested they will impose sanctions on US companies involved in the sale of these defensive articles."

Obama has tried to pursue wide-ranging cooperation with China, saying that the world's largest developed and developing economies can work together on issues from climate change to the North Korean and Iranian nuclear disputes.

But relations have hit a rough patch on a range of disputes including Google's revelations last month that China had been hacking into accounts of the company and human rights activists.

Another row may be fast approaching as Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is visiting the United States in late February.

Obama came under intense criticism at home last year for not meeting with the Dalai Lama so as not to sour the mood before the president's trip to China.

The US side agreed that Obama would meet later with the Dalai Lama, who is widely respected in the United States but vilified by China.

US companies involved in the Taiwan deal all declined to comment other than to say that the issue concerned governments and not individual firms.

An official at one company noted that China did not reveal details about the sanctions, making it difficult to gauge the impact.

US defense contractors sell little to China, which has been under a US and EU arms embargo since its bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.

But Boeing Co. -- whose McDonnell Douglas unit was given a 37 million-dollar contract for 12 Harpoon missiles to Taiwan -- is an aerospace giant which counts China as one of its largest markets.

Nonetheless, Boeing shares closed up 1.82 percent on the New York Stock Exchange, outpacing the benchmark Dow index, after Obama's budget proposal outlined new business for the company with NASA.

Boeing has deep ties with the aviation industry in China, which could stand to lose if it sanctioned the aviation giant.

Three Chinese companies are under contract to produce key parts of Boeing's emblematic 787 Dreamliner, which took to the skies in December after a more than two-year delay.

Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think-tank, said that the sanctions threats came from Chinese officials involved in diplomacy, not the economy.

"It's really too early to tell, but I think it's just a lot of noise," Lohman said of the sanctions threats.

"I'm sure that companies have all calculated their risks" in China before seeking arms contracts in Taiwan, he said.

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