Tens of millions will have to rise up against their government and march on Beijing, irrespective of hundreds of thousands or millions of deaths by tanks, real bullets and aircraft for them to effect real and lasting change there.
It may happen some day...but I am afraid things are going to have to get a whole lot worse before they do.
We are currently engaged in a military exercise called Summer Pulse. We currently are also engaged in Rimpac 2004 and Panamax 2004, and have conducted joint exercises with Thailand, Australia and the Philipenes earlier this summer.
This is in addition to the war in Iraq and Afganistan.
We are putting on a terrific show of strength out there, yet our media hardly reports it.
Here is one analysis however:
However, the cross-Strait strategic balance has been rapidly shifting in China's favor over the past 10 years, and many analysts - including experts at the Pentagon - are starting to believe that the US would have a difficult time intervening on Taiwan's behalf should China decide to attack. Therefore, some elements of the US military want to show China that the US could respond - in a very substantial way.
Official statements from the US Navy confirm that the primary purpose of the drills was to demonstrate the US's ability to get ships where they were needed as quickly as possible.
"We've moved from our standard deployment pattern to the Fleet Response Plan, where we promised the president of the United States that we can put six carriers anywhere in the world within 30 days, and [two more carriers] shortly after that," Vice Admiral Michael McCabe, the commander of the US Navy 3rd Fleet, said in a statement on the US Pacific Command's website. "We've changed the way we maintain, the way we train, the way we equip and the way we deploy. As an example of that, this summer, in what's called Summer Pulse, we will have seven different aircraft carriers with their supporting ships operating in five different theaters."
--Mac William Bishop
Asia Times
Here is something else alarming...
America's Eagle is brought down to earth with a bump
By Peter Spiegel
It started as one of the dozens of military exercises the Pentagon conducts with friendly governments each year - operations that are as much about bilateral diplomacy as about testing military capabilities.
...Whatever the reasons, the US Air Force might normally be expected to keep such a defeat under wraps. But in recent weeks, senior officers have begun leaking information about the exercise, freely admitting their technical inferiority. "We may not be as far ahead of the rest of the world as we once thought we were," says General Hal Hornburg, head of the US's air combat command.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/88ec0f7e-e745-11d8-aff8-00000e2511c8.html
But the exercise carried out in February, involving mock combat between the US and Indian air forces over the skies of Madhya Pradesh in central India, has taken on a life of its own. The reason? The US lost.