The United States should immediately cancel arms sales to Taiwan and stop all military ties with the island China claims as its own, state media on Monday quoted the Chinese defence minister as saying. Arms sales to Taiwan had "poisoned the sound atmosphere of bilateral military relations and endangered China's national security", Xinhua news agency paraphrased Defence Minister Liang Guanglie as saying. It said Liang made the remarks at a meeting in Beijing with Richard Myers, a former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to a report of Reuters.