Editor's note: Yuan Sha, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is deputy director at the Department for Global Governance under the China Institute of International Studies. The article reflects the author's views and not necessarily those of CGTN.

On December 29, drills code-named "Justice Mission 2025" around Taiwan Island were implemented by multiple forces of the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The timing is hardly coincidental, particularly in light of the recent announcement by the U.S. military authority of an $11.1 billion arms sale to China's Taiwan region, which is the largest package on record and the second approved since U.S. President Donald Trump took office this year.

While framed as a necessary measure to ensure Taiwan's security and regional stability, this move is in essence a gamble for the U.S. geopolitical ambitions and corporate interests, which can only be self-defeating and exacerbate tensions in the Taiwan Straits and the broader region.

The U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are rooted in its long-standing strategy of containing China with the Taiwan question. By providing weapons to the island, the U.S. tries to use the Taiwan region as a pawn to provoke cross-Straits tensions and to prevent the reunification and rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

The arm sales announcement comes at a time when Trump unveiled a slew of important security documents, which all highlighted the strategic importance of the region in its hegemonic endeavors. The National Security Strategy (NSS) 2025, released by the White House on December 4, stated clearly that the "United States cannot allow any nation to become so dominant that it could threaten our interests." The strategy specifically positions China as a "near-peer" of the U.S. and leverages Taiwan's geographical location in the "first island chain" to contain China in its broader "Indo-Pacific" strategy. 

Contrary to the retrenchment rhetoric in the NSS 2025, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026, signed by Trump on December 18, further increased the U.S. defense budget to $901 billion and included authorization of up to $1 billion in funds for so-called Taiwan-related security cooperation in 2026, revealing the U.S. hegemonic ambition.

Meanwhile, the "Report to Congress on Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025" on December 23 follows this tendency. Despite its claims that the United States does not seek to "strangle, dominate or humiliate" China, the report fanfares China's "historic" military buildup that makes the U.S. homeland "increasingly vulnerable," and "China expects to be able to fight and win a war on Taiwan by the end of 2027."

By hyping the "China threat" narrative and heightening the sense of imminent conflict in the Taiwan Straits, these claims try to fabricate justifications to arm Taiwan and turn the island into a "porcupine" to provoke and contain China.

Beyond geopolitics, the U.S. arms sales to Taiwan also serve economic interests. The U.S. is the world's largest arms exporter, which reaps in massive and sustained profits. Through a powerful alliance of defense contractors, lobbyists and politicians, the arms sales business has grown into a powerful military-industrial complex which profits by provoking wars around the world. According to data released by the U.S. State Department, the total revenue from U.S. arms sales in 2024 reached a record $318.7 billion, registering a 29 percent increase from the previous year.

Taiwan represents a lucrative market for the American defense industry. Instead of "promoting peace and stability" in the related region, the U.S. keeps demonizing the Chinese reunification cause in an aim to sell more weapons to Taiwan. As a president that is embedded with a businessman mindset, Trump openly pressured the island to spend as much as 10 percent of its economic output on its defense for U.S. "protection," a percentage well above what the U.S. or any of its major allies spend on military.

The Taiwan leader Lai Ching-te caters to Trump by pledging to raise the so-called defense budget to over 3.3 percent of the island's projected GDP next year and 5 percent by 2030. This approach not only increases Taiwan's financial burdens, but also undermines its economic competitiveness and social stability by diverting resources from social welfare.

In fact, the U.S. arms sales will only be self-defeating and will have far-reaching implications for regional peace and stability because of the following reasons: 

First of all, the arms sales are fundamentally flawed. With the national determination of 1.4 billion Chinese people, China's reunification is unstoppable. And according to reports, the U.S. often sells outdated or surplus weapons to Taiwan from its own inventory, which would do little to tip the regional balance.

Moreover, the arms sales would further escalate tensions between China and the U.S. It is also in serious violation of the one-China principle and the three China-U.S. joint communiques which formed the bedrock of China-U.S. diplomatic relations. The U.S. professing to seek dialogue and avoid direct confrontation with China while simultaneously arming Taiwan, exposed its strategic opportunism and would do little to rebuild trust and stabilize the bilateral relations.

In addition, the arms sales risk undermining cross-Straits peace and stability by sending wrong signals to "Taiwan independence" separatist forces and risking triggering a military conflict that could have catastrophic consequences for regional stability. The Lai authorities are making use of the U.S. support to sell its "separatist agenda," in an aim for his own political aggrandizement. Now, Lai is causing a blowback in Taiwan society and facing impeachment, which reflects that people in Taiwan long for peace and oppose Lai's extremely dangerous independent agenda.

Last but not least, by interfering in China's internal affairs and supporting separatist forces, the U.S. risks undermining the principle of sovereignty and territorial integrity enshrined in the UN Charter and erodes the foundations of the post-World War II international order. It also risks emboldening militarism of revisionist countries in the region and around the world. The erroneous remarks of the Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on the Taiwan region is a dangerous case in point.

Ultimately, Taiwan is an integral part of China, and the Taiwan question is at the very core of China's interests and a red line that must not be crossed. It is imperative for the U.S. to refrain from the dangerous gamble of prioritizing containment and profit, and play a constructive role in regional stability in the broader region.

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com. Follow @thouse_opinions on X, formerly Twitter, to discover the latest commentaries in the CGTN Opinion Section.)