is the short tiem span between the latest two sales, previous one happend near the end of bush's term, he postponed it for the sake of olympics, and china reacted mildly.

obama could easily schedule his sale 1 year later, after hu jt's visit late this year. but according to nytimes, obama wanted to send hu a clear tough message.

china's high profile protest is mainly for domestic consideration, the so-called sanction really lacks teeth. according to wash post, china has done this before, only without openly saying it in public.

unless this time china targets boeing, that would be the real news, but analysts doubt it will gone that far.

the likely scenario of compromise is again on language trick. america side say they will notify china when they announce new sales, to TW they will say this is only and pure notice, but to china ccp can translate to fenqing as negotiation and discussion, then hu can happily visit america saving face