[AIG]

Taiwan's in a tough bind. If its factories don't move to the mainland, then they risk losing their competitiveness to their Japanese, Korean, American, etc. couterparts. The best Taiwan can hope for is that the Taiwanese businesses that do move to the mainland send some money back to Taiwan, but the overall picture is still gloomy because even the more "value-added" businesses that currently remain in Taiwan and have not moved to the mainland will eventually move too. For instance, LCD monitors are a higher-margin product that Taiwan has tried to keep production of in Taiwan, but even LCD monitors are increasingly being manufactured in the mainland now because of the mainland's lower overall production costs (land, labor, utilities, etc.). Taiwan was an export-based economy to begin with and never developed much of a large, domestic, internal economy in anything, so Taiwan doesn't have much to fall back on as its hi-tech crown jewels continue to migrate to the mainland.

[Jhoffa_]

What would you have us do in the event China invades (reunifies, storms with roman candles, whatever..) Taiwan?

You mentioned "vague language" so I assume you are ready to trash our treaty.. And if not, how far would you go to support them? Nuke conflict if the need was there?

Come on, you posted this thread so don't be vague.. don't hide or parse.. We had 8 years of that already.

[happytobealive]

AIG, you obviously have spent a lot of time studying China.

How much of a military threat do you think they pose?

[DoughtyOne]

Much of your analysis applies directly to another nation in decline.