Look, Ma, No Arms

The Weekly Standard poses the same question we did a few days ago: why is the Bush Administration delaying planned arms sales to Taiwan?

Put another way, if the current White House kicks this can down the road, Taipei may find it virtually impossible to modernize its arsenal. An Obama Administration would almost certainly reject any arms sales to Taiwan, lest Beijing be offended.

Meanwhile, the PRC continues its own, massive military build-up along the strait. Back in 1995, Beijing set a goal of deploying 500 ballistic missiles near Taiwan by the end of that decade. Thirteen years later, there are more than 1,000 missiles, mostly CSS-6 and CSS-7s, threatening Taiwan.