Citing Taiwan arms sale, China sanctions Raytheon, Boeing CEOs

BARCELONA — Livid over a recently announced potential $1.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan, the Chinese government is targeting CEOs at two major American defense contractors with new sanctions.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a regular press conference today that the government was leveling sanctions against Raytheon Technologies CEO Gregory Hayes and Boeing Defense, Space & Security CEO Ted Colbert, who Beijing said were “involved” in the deals.

“The arms sales gravely undermine China’s sovereignty and security interests, and severely harm China-US relations and peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” the ministry spokesperson said. “China firmly opposes and strongly condemns the sales.”

Earlier this month the Biden administration, through the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, greenlit a series of potential sales, including more than $665 million in advanced radar-related tech primarily made by Raytheon and more than $350 million in Harpoon missiles and equipment made by Boeing.

It’s unclear what practical impact the sanctions will have, and previous similar sanctions were seen mostly as symbolic, according to The Associated Press. Breaking Defense has reached out to Raytheon and Boeing for comment.

Tensions between the US and China over Taiwan have been especially strained since last month when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island over Chinese protests. China responded with a show of force in the form of aggressive military exercises surrounding the island — though China expert Dean Cheng of the Heritage Foundation noted much of it was likely pre-planned for months.

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Late last week, Pentagon policy chief Colin Kahl told the Defense News conference that Chinese President Xi Jinping has given his military until 2027 to “develop the military capabilities to forcefully reunify with Taiwan,” but Kahl said he’s seen “no indication” Xi has made the decision to invade.

Still, Kahl highlighted the delicacy of the situation and the potential for things to go wrong.

“As China becomes increasingly assertive in kind of asserting its prerogatives around Taiwan, … do they take the next step of trying to enforce those changes in the status quo in a way that runs the risk of an incident — an incident with the United States, and incident with one of our allies and partners?” he asked. “We have seen the [People’s Republic of China] engage in, over the last year or two, … a trendline of increasingly unsafe and unprofessional encounters — both in … the skies and at sea.”