There is often no distinction between many Taiwanese companies and mainland Chinese companies. They're often one in the same. You're right; I did forget to mention that.
Be they communist, or capitalist, it all comes in second behind the fact that they're Chinese first.
Apologies to those readers that are making a supplementary living off of Red Chinese scaremongering, but I don't see any evidence other than it's a load of BS at the moment.
The fact is, they have many relatives on the mainland who are not a part of the 8-10% who are really profiting from the bonanza economy. Those that are, happen to be members of the old communist party. It still exists and has just found a new way to bring in the hard currency to develop the infrastructure that there maoist ideology could not produce. They are using the cheap, manual labor of one billion to fund the growth and retention of power of 100 million. And they are taking the proceeds and preparing for that future (both infrastructure wise and militarily) when they will ultimately challenge us.
And in my estimation they are doing it for the same reason they were trying to push the Maoist philosophy. They ultimately want hegonomy in Asia. They want to control those Asian markets and feed the European ones. Make no mistake, when they have placed themselves in a position to do that, and in doing so have tied up the majority of our manufacturing capability ... I believe they will move.
I don't believe it will be successful anymore than the Japanese attempt at the same goals 60 years ago was. But it could lead to the same results, and if so, it will be very costly and dangerous to roll it back.
Don't get me wrong ... there are plenty of Taiwanese manufacturors and businesses who are grasping the opportunity to set up shop in China ... but it will not lead to liberty, the pursuit of happiness and freedoms we take for granted here. There are plenty of citizens of the Republic of China who know this ... but they have a tough time trusting us after what we did under Carter.
Anyhow, those are my thoughts.
Is the PRC ready to do this now? No way ... it's still very premature. But stranger things have happened and if N. Korea can get the South without a fight ... and if Taiwan continues on the path they are on ... they might not need to start fighting until later anyhow ... if at all ... to accomplish that goal.
Fregards.
Gee, if you don't think the Chinese care about the ME, why, pray tell, have they invested in Iraqi oil fields? Why did they build the telecom network in Kabul under the Taliban? Why did they fund the Lippo group's investment in Bill Clinton's second campaign? (Oh, that one is to get missile MIRVing secrets from Clinton's friend, Loral).
The Chinese are afraid of how successfully and quickly we are moving in the ME. Their painstaking work of building a relationship with the Central Asian republics is falling apart. They want us to be distracted in NK.
We must stay focused.
That's a great line, KG9. The Chinese threat to Taiwan in 2003 is impressive, but only in the scale of the disaster it would be for the mainlanders. An amphibious assault spearheaded by a few hundred DF-15 missiles and People's boat parade would be an enourmous risk, even without factoring in a U.S. response. The difficulty of the task would be several times harder than the landing at Normandy, and the PRC is just not currently up to the task. At a bare minimum, it is safe to say that, while North Korea could make an attack coincide with our attack on Iraq, China could not.
(Yes, I know the history of the Korean war, but upon closer examination it is clear that these two situations don't have very much in common.)