The message is clear, US must stop selling arms to Taiwan

That Beijing has vowed to sanction US enterprises that have agreed to sell $2.2 billion of arms to Taiwan must have made island leader Tsai Ing-wen, who landed in the US on Friday on her way to four Caribbean states, and her American hosts uneasy.

This is the first time Beijing has decided to take a concrete countermeasure, other than issuing a strong protest, to remind the United States and Taiwan that its patience is fast running out. And this is the first time the US' strategy vis-��-vis Taiwan seems set to be broken, as is the equilibrium among the three sides.

Now that the ball is in the US' court, it is its obligation to warn its enterprises not to participate in arms sales to the island. Not least because compared with the huge market of the Chinese mainland, the island's demand for US weapons pales into insignificance.