Or maybe they just wanted an excuse to get rid of their Muslims and are counting on us to kill them.
More likely, report is false.
Still what is so important to travel now to a part of the world in upheaval.
The notion that they're going to re-enforce Taliban forces is pure fiction. They're securing the border, that's all. Not an unusual event when a neighboring country is going to war
If the Chinese are going to do anything as a result of this war, they're going to invade Taiwan at the height of the conflict. Then it's World War III.
I new it was Debka.
No it is not true, the Chinese have there own problems with Taliban backed guerrillas in the Xinjiang province.
China has gone on record supporting the American strikes against the Taliban.
Tony
October 8, 2001
China and Taiwan
WASHINGTON--The elemental lesson to be learned from September 11 is that (BEG ITAL)nothing(END ITAL) is unthinkable, although many possibilities are unthought, particularly by peaceful nations. So perhaps now Americans should think about the possibility of a swift, because remarkably brutal, conquest of Taiwan by the People's Republic of China.
It is U.S. strategic doctrine that the armed forces should be sufficient to successfully fight two major regional conflicts simultaneously. Forces sufficient for one are being deployed to Southwest Asia. A second such conflict could erupt in Southeast Asia, explains professor Richard L. Russell of the National Defense University. His ``devil's advocate analysis"--written before September 11--appears in Parameters, the U.S. Army War College quarterly.
America's sanguine assumption is that China lacks the necessary force-projection capabilities. It is deficient in amphibious ships and other means of delivering troops by water, particularly given that Taiwan's pilots and aircraft (F-16s and Mirage 2000s) are superior to China's.
But China could confound that assumption using surprise, a ``force multiplier.'' China could use amphibious assaults only as diversions to draw Taiwanese ground forces away from the primary invasion points--air bases. And China could employ unprecedented ruthlessness--tactical nuclear weapons and chemical weapons.
Such surprise and ruthlessness may seem far-fetched--as far-fetched as the idea of using commercial aircraft as bombs to level skyscrapers would have seemed a month ago, had anyone imagined it. However, Russell notes that Pearl Harbor, Germany's attack on the Soviet Union, North Korea's invasion of South Korea, China's intervention in Korea and the 1973 Yom Kippur War were all surprises.
Besides, Russell says, a nation contemplating aggression considers the dangers of peace as well as of war. China sees that time is on the side of Taiwan's improvement of its economic strength, political links to the world and military capacity for self-defense--particularly if Taiwan acquires defenses against ballistic missiles.
Russell says China could secretively increase sealift and air transport capacity, and paratrooper training, for a conflict that would begin with a bolt-out-of-the-blue barrage of hundreds of missiles to ``decapitate'' Taiwan's military by striking command-and-control facilities. China has an estimated inventory of 240 missiles capable of striking Taiwan from the mainland.
Missile warheads loaded with persistent and nonpersistent chemical agents could incapacitate Taiwan's air and air defense forces. Hence Chinese fighter aircraft could escort transport aircraft that would deliver paratroopers. Their drops onto Taiwan's airbases would be timed to coincide with the evaporation of nonpersistent chemical agents that had disabled those bases. Once the bases were secured by Chinese paratroopers, Chinese transports could land more troops.
By striking hard and fast, even with tactical nuclear weapons, China could hope to conquer Taiwan before there could be any U.S. military buildup in the region. And Westerners might be projecting their values on China by assuming that China regards nuclear weapons exclusively as means of deterrence and weapons of last, desperate resort.
There is evidence that Chinese military doctrine, unlike America's, holds that nuclear weapons can be applicable even in wars in which less than national survival is at stake. And Russell writes that the Chinese might argue that the use of weapons of mass destruction would set no international precedent because they would be employed against a province in an ``internal affair.''
Tiananmen Square demonstrated Beijing's readiness to use violence for political objectives against Chinese who challenge it. As for the price China would pay for international disapproval of such ruthlessness, Beijing may be willing to pay the price because it would be transitory: just 12 years after the Tiananmen Square violence was telecast to the world, China was awarded the 2008 Olympics.
President Bush has modified the long-standing policy of ``strategic ambiguity'' enough to say that America would do ``whatever it took'' to defend Taiwan against attack. But China says it reserves the right to use force to keep the ``renegade province'' of Taiwan a part of one China. Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., a thinking person's Cassandra, warns that China may be understating its military spending, which it says increased 17.7 percent last year. He worries that Chinese preparations for aggression could be, like the terrorists in America before September 11, ``hiding in plain sight.''
Russell wrote his scenario to emphasize that ``improbable'' is not a synonym for ``impossible,'' and to induce ``a sense of caution and humility about the limits of foresight in knowing the prospects for war.'' On September 11 America received a violent lesson about those limits.
The aggression Russell describes is not unthinkable. Nothing is.
Not to worry, Think about this, the Chinese have basically outlawed religion of any sort, so they are not about to back any "muslim" forces. They may be securing their borders, and that would be the wise thing to do.
Right now the Chinese top priority is to be admittid to the WTO. I cannot imagine that they would jeopardize this for any reason. One fact that you can count on, and it has been widely reported, is that they have just ordered 30 new civilian transport planes from Boeing, at a cost of $1.6 billion. I will not go so far as to say that they want to be our allies, but they have publicly supported our actions in this war.
The Wakhan Corridor and the entire Northeastern corner of the country are under the control of the Northern Alliance.
Ergo, like most of the DEBKAfiles stories, this report is a fabrication on its surface.
Gonna be an LONG day, with 17-18 hours in the jet - and LOTS of jet-lag to go with that! (13 time zones. It's 7:10 p.m. Dallas time and 8:10 a.m. tomorrow morning in Shenyang, China!). Hmm? What's the weather forecast in Shenyang? Looks like 62 degrees for a high on Friday!: