[Dr. Marten]

The most valuable sentence in this article is "an atrack on Taiwan would be a political suicide" for the PRC.

Any person that has a good understing of the PRC realizes this. The degree of the people who believe that the PRC will attak Taiwan depends on their degree of understang of the PRC. Chen Shui-bian, Hu Jintao and Bush are playing a game of cat and mouse. They are simply trying to push their political agendas rater than trying to touch the hot potato itself.

At the same time though, I am not naive enough to say that Beijing would NEVER attack Taiwan under any circumstances.

[Quix]

I have a fair amount of respect for that perspective and agree with it . . .

TO A POINT.

Every Mainlander I've talked to in recent years has justified an attack on Taiwan to some greater or lesser degree--whether they were still in Mainland China at the time or not. To the best of my memory, EVERY one.

I have seen Chinese more than a few times paint themselves into a corner by their words and very defensively, with great fire and self-justification strike out however devastatingly--feeling very righteous and thoroughly justified regardless of the horror in their wake.

I think the puppet masters think THEY have Bejing under fine tuned control. And Beijing thinks THEY are playing the ART OF WAR *MOST* SKILLFULLY.

Room for miscalculations abound.

Yes, I think by the time the dust EVENTUALLY settled, it would be the end of the Communist Party's Control in Beijing. But that process could take longer than many think.