Does the selling of LIMITED ARMS (because that's what they constitute the arms sales to Taiwan is of LIMITED FASHION) constitute an open signal to anyone with half a brain that such transactions chip away at the ONE CHINA POLICY, and moreover does the process by itself sends a strong signal to the Taiwanese, to the mainland Chinese, and to the rest of the people around the world that U.S. tacitly endorses and supports Taiwan independence? Has any of the weapon sales been delivered by a POLITICAL PERSON that's number 3 in U.S. government or any current serving U.S. government personnel, ever?
If the answers to these questions are resounding NO'S then it goes to show you that selling arms does not illicit a strong passionate emotion from either side. It's bloody annoying, but the act itself does not erode the ONE CHINA POLICY or least of all, endorses the ambition of separatists in Taiwan for independence.
However, with the impending visit of Pelosi to Taiwan is rightly seen and interpreted by any sane and rationale Chinese people and even outside experts as not only a very provocative move, but an act that is seen as a further validation of Taiwanese separatists aspirations of becoming an independent country. The fact that you couldn't see it from a political angle is astonishingly blind.
As Clausewitz emphatically expressed on his eponymous book "On War" war itself is a continuation of politics by other means. A political act/theater with great global attention, fanfare invites, and provokes a reaction from China that it can't and must not back down. Not at this juncture. While it's true that U.S. has been at war with China on multiple fronts: trade war/economic war, tech war. Now, the U.S. is upping up the ante into China's core red line that's Taiwan.
The Chinese government may have been less bellicose when then U.S. administration launched it's preemptive trade war, tech war etc. against China it could respond back with less emotion involved since the physical sovereignty of the country wasn't being infringed, or it's territorial integrity being breached. But the issue of Taiwan as you and I know was, is, and will be a different case. The question of response or inadequate response from the previous Chinese government or even the current one must be examined in it's proper context. Selling limited arms to Taiwan is not equal and will never be equal to a political opportunists desire to poke and test the mettle of China's core principles.
