Posted on 08/10/2002 1:23:57 PM PDT by Destro
CHINA: Saber Rattling
August 9, 2002; The most recent round of threats between China and Taiwan over Taiwan's independence raises the issue of how far the US would go in defending Taiwan if China did attack. China has said outright, and often, that it would attack Taiwan if Taiwan made to much of being independent. The US has sent warships into the waters between Taiwan and China many times. But in the 1990s, China began to threaten attacks on US warships, and the US has kept it's aircraft carriers out of the area since then. The new warplanes and warships China is buying from Russia were originally designed to attack US navy task forces. These weapons have never been put to the test, but the threats have been made. If US warships move too close to the Chinese coast, the Chinese may feel compelled to put up or shut up.
August 7, 2002; Taiwan cancelled scheduled navy exercises in order to reduce the tension with China.
August 6, 2002; China loudly (but mainly in non-Chinese language media) threatened war with Taiwan if Taiwan declared its independence. Apparently, the Chinese don't want to get their own population agitated about this. There is growing domestic unrest over economic conditions (closing money losing state owned companies) and censorship (trying to control Internet access).
IMHO, we should start making port calls in Taiwan.............
As much as the media would like us to believe that 'muslims' are all of one mind, it simply isn't true. As much as we are told that Arafat has 'overwhelming support' among Palestinians, I don't even believe that that is true. The average person may go through the motions of 'support,' but if the average palestinian was buying into the line Israel would be gone by now, because they would simply be overwhelmed. If the average palestinian was buying into the myth, Arafat wouldn't have to keep their news censored; candy wouldn't be neccessary to get kids to celebrate Israeli deaths, he wouldn't have to threaten his own people or drag them- or often their relatives- into his 'police stations' for attitude adjustment.
The same goes in Iran where the people know their leaders are bankrupt beyond repair. The same goes for Iraqis. All these people are held in bondage to a minority of people who just happen to be very prone to violence, while the people are for the most part wholly unarmed, or barely making a living to spare time to think up grand conspiracies to topple madmen.
Castro routinely rouses his people to parade around and protest the US, but he does so by bribing people with T-shirts while others are reluctant to look 'unpatriotic' by not showing up. If they are absent the local nark will note it.
We were treated in the West to years of silly communist parades showing thousands upon thousands of people marching in lock-step to the glory of the revolution, flashed countless images of rockets and missiles in ghastly parades, shown the glistening ranks of tractors produced by maniacal communist empires to awe us with their production capacity, given discrete peeks at quaint wholesome villages... and they all turned out to be Potempkin villages and so much useless junk. What we didn't see were nations critically short on basic products such as nails, bread lines, flats crowded with too many occupants, the dirt, the pollution, the purges, the bribery, the depression... little did some of us know that it was all... blown way out of proportion. Some were deathly afraid because they couldn't see what the people in htose societies see every day- the utter despair that people undergo and they know the cause is not the US. They know what the cause is.
We saw it in Pakistan when the street was filled with 'enthusiastic' bin Laden supporters... all ready to go out and fight the Great Satan. Where did they go? They seem to be in hiding, or have gone about with more important things to do now that they don't have to put up with unbridled terrorists owning their streets.
we can rely on 800 million Hindus to tip the number balance in our favor,
We won't need nearly so many of them with our kill ratio.
and we may not want Taiwan to change the balance by adding 1 billion Chinese to the Muslim side.
With the Chinese currently fighting separatist muslims, that's not too likely. But the Chinese are not one undifferentiated mass of people ready to be programmed by the state, either. This is even more true for China than for muslims. The various Chinese peoples aren't stupid. Their own government isn't too popular among them either.
They aren't all going to jump on the 'I think invading Taiwan is great' bandwagon... many would be thrilled to get out into the west as we see by how many come here and even to other countries.
In these times, we need to keep our passions in check and our minds cold and calculating.
The best thing the US can ever do is retain its integrity. That means we should keep our word- and if we need to be cold and calculating to do it, so be it.
''Russia acknowledges that there is only one China, the government of the People's Republic of China is the only legitimate government representing all of China, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China,'' the treaty said. ''Russia opposes any kind of independence for Taiwan.''
"At the request of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, military analysts are currently developing a new defense strategy, due in September, which will sufficiently reduce American combat readiness, defense capabilities and effectiveness. While it's very difficult to predict what could happen to America's defenses after this new strategy is implemented, there is no doubt that from that time onward the U.S. military will no longer be prepared to wage two major wars simultaneously."
Russia May Expand Nuclear Doctrine (4/28/00)
Russia's hidden nuclear missiles: Clinton turned blind eye to major treaty violations (6/5/00)
Nuclear Strategy and Small Nuclear Forces: The Conceptual Components (6/22/00)
Nuclear experts warn against implementation of START II Treaty and US Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament (2/6/01)
Russia test-fires SS-25 intercontinental missile (10/3/01)
DoD News: Special Briefing on the Nuclear Posture Review (1/15/02)
Report: Military Plans Nuke Hits on 7 Countries (3/9/02)
U.S. Says Russia Is Preparing Nuclear Tests (5/12/02)
ROFL. That is assuming you know how the enemy thinks. These are the real questions: when will the Chinese regime become desperate enough to focus the masses' attention away from domestic problems? When does a hard-liner take over China? When does China determine that the US is unable to help Taiwan?
Taiwan might as well walk with her head high until that time. No point in having Taiwan muzzle itself fearfully, cringing from the giant bully. China decides when to attack. Not Taiwan. Taiwan's morale is more significant than diplomatic word games.
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