Beijing's defence ministry has insisted that full military-to-military exchanges with the US cannot resume unless Washington scraps plans to sell more than $6bn of advanced weapons to Taiwan and stops contacts with the island's armed forces.

The strong line from Maj Gen Qian Lihua, director of the ministry's foreign affairs office, suggests that the Chinese mainland's military is determined to ensure that the US pays a price for a decision last month to sell Taipei arms, including Patriot air defence missiles, Apache helicopters and spare parts for F-16 fighters.