 "US, China, US China trade war")
China on Thursday announced sanctions against two US companies over what it says is their support for arms sales to Taiwan, the self governing island democracy Beijing claims as its own territory to be recovered by force if necessary.
The announcement freezes the assets of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems held within China. The measure also bars the companies' management from entering the country.
It wasn't immediately clear what, if any, assets the companies have within China, which remains heavily reliant on foreign aerospace technology even as it attempts to build its own presence in the field.
Chinese President Xi Jinping met with former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou in Beijing Wednesday in a bid to promote unification between the sides that separated amid civil war in 1949.
Ma left office almost two decades ago and was largely excluded from the opposition Nationalist Party's failed campaign to retake the presidency in January, a concession to the electorate's strong opposition to political unification with China and politicians seen as willing to compromise Taiwan's security.
He follows a long line of politicians from the Nationalists, also known as the KMT, who have been invited to China by its authoritarian one-party government and given VIP treatment on visits around the country.
China claims Taiwan as its own territory, to be annexed by force if necessary. Beijing sends navy ships and warplanes around the island on a daily basis in hopes of wearing down Taiwan's defensives and intimidating the population.
The people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are all Chinese. There is no dispute that cannot be resolved, there is no problem that cannot be discussed, and no force can separate us," Xi told Ma.
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"Differences in systems cannot change the fact that both sides of the Taiwan Straits belong to the same country and nation, he added.
Ma responded that a new war between the two sides would be an unbearable burden for the Chinese nation.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
