BEIJING: China and the United States were today locked in an escalating row over US arms sales to Taiwan, with Washington rebuffing Chinese protests and insisting the deal promotes stability in the Taiwan Strait.

The Pentagon on Friday sparked the latest challenge to China-US relations under President Barack Obama when it approved the 6.4-billion-dollar sale of Patriot missiles, Black Hawk helicopters, mine-hunting ships and other weaponry.

China responded furiously, saying it would suspend military and security contacts with Washington and impose sanctions on US firms involved in the deal. Beijing warned of “severe harm” to relations. The Pentagon expressed “regret” over the bitter response, which reflected a rapid souring of relations with the United States amid strains over trade, climate change and China’s Internet controls.

US State Department spokeswoman Laura Tischler told AFP the sale “contributes to maintaining security and stability across the Taiwan Strait”, a viewed echoed by Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou. But China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, which handles relations with the island, rejected that view as “totally untenable”. In an official diplomatic protest, China said the row would endanger cooperation with the United States on “key international and regional issues”.

It did not elaborate, but the comment comes as Washington seeks Beijing’s help in curbing the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea. Jing-dong Yuan, a non-proliferation expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, said the dispute means Washington “should forget about” Chinese support for more sanctions against Tehran. “Even before the arms sale, China was reluctant to

agree to additional sanctions because of its significant

economic stakes in that country,” he said.

Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said she expected Beijing to stay engaged on Iran but there was a risk China could overplay its hand out of anger over Taiwan. “There is a sense in China that their leverage over the United States and their position in the world is growing, and in that sense there might be a little bit of overreaching,” she said. China’s state-run media was mostly mum on the rift today but Xinhua said in a commentary the world needs “healthy, stable and developing China-US ties,” saying the two countries have many “common interests”.