"Mao was a serious threat to his own people and should have been dealt with by their people. But please explain to me how China’s government today isn’t a Communist Maoist type government?"
DId you realize that last year, even the Communist party removed "Marxist ideology" from the party doctrine? It's only an authoritarian state now, the "Communist" part is an empty shell.
I went to China in 1998 to visit my aging grandmother. While I was there, i had a debate with one of the local judges (who was a very distant relative of my grandmother) about democracy in the US versus China and he agrees that the US is far more democratic. Neither of us were arrested, in fact, he was promoted. I think that spell progress, don't you think?
The thing is, eventually China will become democratic, but it will take time and will not be forced by outside influences. It doesn't matter if China is democratic or not, the Chinese people will STILL insist that Taiwan is part of China and any attempt to separate it will result in use of force. Is the US willing to use force on China when China becomes democratic??? :)
Anyway, it's all a moot point to debate about this, because we all know that while Bush is tangled in Iraq, his options are limited with regards to China and intervention. And even Bush and the administration knows that any intervention with Taiwan would be a small scale thing -- it will not be an outright invasion. The Korean war proves how devastating it would be for American troops if it were to go into the mainland -- remember, China was FAR, FAR, FAR behind technologically at the time, then it is today (it's behind the US technologically, but the gap has narrowed significantly), and still was able to finish the war in a stalemate.
The only way the US would win in such scenario is to use nuclear weapons, and the US will not do so -- if it does, heh, get ready of nuclear war (not just China, but from Russia, etc. Do you really think radiation will just sit there and not move as many posters on this forum advocates?)
China will never get a good running government of any kind until they first get the corruption out of government. As long as government is tied at the hip with industry corrption will be massive.
” The Korean war proves how devastating it would be for American troops if it were to go into the mainland.. “
I am lost with this statement? Because our leaders flat out ignored and fired our generals on the ground in Korea which told the president we must TAKE China, some how that is ‘devastating for our troops? I don’t understand what you mean? Why do you suggest the only way the US can win is through nuclear war? China today wound win if it went nuclear, China is the only country in the world that could lose 2/3 of its population and do BETTER afterwards.