All they have to do is expel all the Taiwanese living in China. Without its China business, the island is Donald Ducked. No need for troublesome blockades and what have you. And I don’t know if America could argue that was a act to change the status of Taiwan - it would be merely Economics.
Well said … and another way is to use the thousands and thousands of fishing boats in Fujian to encircle Taiwan. It would be hard for the Taiwanese navy to fire on unarmed fishing boats …
Everytime the media refers to President Chen as the “president of Taiwan” we score a victory. Chen isn’t the president of Taiwan, unless Taiwan is an independant nation. He is the president of the Republic of China, which happens to be on the real estate called Taiwan.
Well said … and another way is to use the thousands and thousands of fishing boats in Fujian to encircle Taiwan. It would be hard for the Taiwanese navy to fire on unarmed fishing boats …[/quote]
I do not think they would use fishing boats to stop huge tankers and ships
If China did have a blockade set up, I do not think the Taiwanese would let their airforce stand idly by. The Chinese ships would be sitting dicks to the airforce
Anyway you there have immediate esaclation of the conflict, whereby the Chinese would send their airforce
I am sure that both China and Taiwan are aware of the others’s probable response and so I do not think an blockade would be attempted
Any missle attack on a Taiwan target would result in the military stricking the source
Taiwan has money and a hugh semi conductor industry. I would not think they would roll over and capitulate, so allowing the Chinese to run riot in Taiwan
you’re probably right… but if you consider the taiwanese “airforce”'s alarming ability to crash their planes into the ocean/mountains/other planes/construction equipment at absurdly regular intervals all during peace time exercises and combine it with their boozed up, all night mah-jiang playing, overly superstitious pilots who’ve got zero combat experience and 10 year old “hand me down” redundant u.s. technology…
would they really be able to mount anything close to a cohesive defense?..
but notice that GW Bushie, the USA pres, called Chen “the Taiwan leader” the other day when speaking to reporters re the referendumess. He didn’t even say president.
REINHOLD had said: "Everytime the media refers to President Chen as the “president of Taiwan” we score a victory. "
So does this mean we lost one? for the gipper?
AP oday evfen calls him LEADER not Pres. see below:
TAIPEI, Taiwan – AP, After keeping the public in suspense for months, Taiwan’s leader picked outspoken Vice President Annette Lu as his running mate in the March 20 election.
So… Anyone leaving yet ?
No, everyone here is going to stay and fight? Right?
I guess whether they could mount a defence would be irrelevant at the point. This would be open war…
Then which side would the US take… do nothing saying it as an internal matter thus following the one china principle and let Taiwan makes it stand alone else aid in Taiwan’s defence or is it in the defence of Taiwan?
This TRA is so intentionally vague that you could argue what constitutes what and what is the appropriate action
And how would the US provide aid… Would the US be willing to go blow to blow with Chinese military machine else would they slap trade embargoes on China… thus damaging US Sino relations… how would the EU react how would the UN react… a couple of diplomatic speeches so ambiguous and unclear that everybody is left confused even more
I do not know… but could guess all day.
Bottom line though… any military conflict is bad news for all involved… and I think this is the last thing wanted by all… a lot of this is perhaps just propaganda on both sides of the strait
For China especially…all Communist countries and dictatorships as I can remember inclusive of N Korea are very good at talking the talk… but at the end of the day… the same peasants that brought them into power might remove them as well if their lives are put in danger for him or the regime… remember these people rule by control and oppression… if there guard is down or their back is turned there are a lot of people waiting in line to stick a knife in there…Chinese Communist is an oxymoron… have you ever seen someone in Taiwan being communist or socialist about anything… not when money and collection of material things seem to drive most of them
Everyone is getting all excited about what is happening across the Strait… China saying A-Bian is going for independence from the China… since they focus on A Bian as the ONE… Therefore they are inadvertently projecting the belief that the other 22 million want to go back with China.
In that case they can have no basis for Taiwan not to have a referendum
Actually maybe A Bian is now thinking - screw the US… China knows that if China invades and Bush throws the TRA out the window… the USA and other countries will have to intervene… if not where are they going to get the semi conductors etc…
Another question is could China support a conventional war and invasion… probably but it would take a long time to overpower Taiwan… and in that time world opinion go against them pushed on by the shortage of semiconductors…
could they nuke Taiwan or level it with 498 missiles?.. yes… but then who would ever deal or want to deal with them again?
Would China destroying Taiwan both economically and physically save face and would not letting Taiwan go free be a serious loss of face?
I think Taiwan and China won’t fight… they are too worried about the loss of money caused by it… how much is Taiwan worth to the fat cronies in Beijing or in Taipei… not that much
Forgive me I am beginning to rant
There will be a war. Mark my words.
I will as soon as soon as, was it the millions or the masses?, start dying from SARS 
No one ever believes me. Until it is too late. Story of my short life.
I’m sorry to say, but I think you will all be disappointed.
This referendum has nothing to do with U.S. or China. Chen is using it as a stick to try and beat the KMT. That’s the rub.
He was smartly outmaneuvred on the issue once, but the whole election strategy is based on wrong footing the KMT.
One can argue about the rights and wrongs of the referendum: I truly can’t see why he picked this topic of all the possibilities - I mean why do we need a survey of popular opinion when we know what the answer will be.
The only possible way to see the value of the proposed referendum is that he’s using it to get something else. What does he want?
TO BE REELECTED.
Kenneth
I really want Chen to get re-elected because I support his general POV of the world. However, if he does get re elected, it will be four more years of THIS. We’ve seen THIS already. Boooooooooooooooo…ring!
Although I do not want LienSoong to come to power, at least it might an interesting four years.
So the question is this: would you prefer to live in interesting times or been there done that times? Ideology aside, I kinda like the idea of a new four years, maybe even some exciting times. Although I will vote for Chen come election day.
Last I checked the KMT had twice as many Overseas Chinese representatives in the Legislative Yuan as the DPP. Or do you choose to apply your comments only to DPP supporters?
[quote=“formosa”]Washington Post […]:
And yet editorially it says Taiwan should not vote on or proclaim independence. […]![/quote]
We must be reading different Washington Posts. The Post editorial I saw offered a blistering defense of Taiwan (and one can hardly accuse the Post of being a neo-con voicepiece like the Wall Street Journal).
Washington Post editorial
Mr. Bush’s Kowtow
Wednesday, December 10, 2003; Page A30
FOR THE PAST several weeks, Taiwan and China have been exchanging rhetorical broadsides about how the island’s political future might be decided. Taiwan’s democratically elected president, Chen Shui-bian, has been hinting that maybe his people should make a democratic choice about whether to unite with China or become independent. Beijing’s Communist dictators have replied with bellicose threats to settle the matter by force, no matter the price. Yesterday President Bush essentially placed the United States on the side of the dictators who promise war, rather than the democrats whose threat is a ballot box. His gift to visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was to condemn “the comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan” while ignoring the sanguinary rhetoric of the man standing next to him. Mr. Bush had his reasons for doing so – above all to avoid one more foreign policy crisis during an election year. But in avoiding a headache for himself, he demonstrated again how malleable is his commitment to the defense of freedom as a guiding principle of U.S. policy.
Democracy is not always pretty or pure, of course, and Taiwan provides no exception. Mr. Chen has started talking about independence and promoting referendums because he is locked in a reelection battle. Trailing in the polls, he seems to think he can win by producing the same dynamic that helped him four years ago, when China’s threats and missile firings in the Taiwan Strait touched off a backlash among voters. Though Mr. Chen favors independence, most Taiwanese do not: Polls show they prefer to maintain the status quo indefinitely. So Mr. Chen cleverly proposes to hold a referendum on his own election day next March asking his citizens not to decide on Taiwan’s status but simply to call on China to remove the 500 missiles it has positioned in range of Taiwan and to renounce the use of force. It is, perhaps, a cynical electoral ploy – something known to occur in other democratic countries – but it poses no threat to China.
Beijing’s new Communist leaders, including Mr. Wen, would be wise to embrace Mr. Chen’s demands. Without such steps, they will have no chance of persuading Taiwan’s 23 million people to accept unification with the mainland. Instead they have fallen back on the sort of primitive threats that ought to cause other democracies to rally to Taiwan’s defense. Last week one general predicted an “abyss of war” if Mr. Chen pressed his independence agenda, and in case that was considered a bluff, spelled out the price that he said China was ready to pay, from cancellation of the 2008 Olympics to mass casualties. “We will not sit by and do nothing when faced with provocative activities,” Mr. Wen blustered in an interview with The Post last month.
It’s bad enough that the world’s largest dictatorship might consider a nonbinding referendum opposing the use of force to be a provocation justifying war. But for the United States to accept such totalitarian logic is inexcusable. Mr. Bush says his policy is to oppose any unilateral change in the status quo by either side and to observe the “one China” policy of previous administrations. Aides say Beijing has been told that the use of force is unacceptable. But Mr. Bush didn’t say that. Instead he swallowed Beijing’s argument that Mr. Chen’s referendum is somehow intolerable, and he dispatched a senior aide to Taipei to insist that no vote be held. A president who believed his own promise to “favor freedom” would have said yesterday that China’s “comments and actions” – from invasion threats to missile deployments – were of considerably greater concern than a proposed exercise in voting booths.
[quote=“hexuan”]Democracy should be about the people who actually live in the country deciding what goes on there. Which is why I think foreigners permanently settled here should be given the vote.
Don’t you find it a bit ironic that you have political influence in a country you don’t live in, but can do nothing to affect the politics of the country in which you do live ?[/quote]
Is there any country that allows non-citizens to legally vote? I would be very surprised if there were.
Are any of the Forumosa people from any of the foreign ‘embassies’ here? Would love to hear their assessments of the military might of Taiwan V China. From my limited understanding and drunken conversations with govt officials, the Chinese navy is pretty ineffective, with the air force not much better. Army wise, well… as a Beijing bicycle repair man once said in a FEER article “they can kill 10 million of us, there will just be 10 million more to take their place”… it would be an interesting battle NOW… but with the massive amounts of military spending the Chinese are undertaking, the future does not bode well for Taiwan.
For me personally it all boils down to the fact that the Chinese have had no role in the running of Taiwan for 50+ years. Shame there isnt some sort of statute of limitation on these things. You can argue til you are blue in the face about the DPP V KMT but I find most foreigners views on Taiwan politics are heavily swayed by their Taiwanese partners and families political views.
6 of one half dozen of the other… at the end of the day, what do WE know about it all anyway. All this ‘old China hand’ bollox is so passe.
I’m rambling…
[quote=“Ben”][quote=“hexuan”]Democracy should be about the people who actually live in the country deciding what goes on there. Which is why I think foreigners permanently settled here should be given the vote.
Don’t you find it a bit ironic that you have political influence in a country you don’t live in, but can do nothing to affect the politics of the country in which you do live ?[/quote]
Is there any country that allows non-citizens to legally vote? I would be very surprised if there were.[/quote]
I can’t give you a list of all countries that allow non-citizens to vote, but I will give you a nearby example: the Hong Kong SAR. Permanent residents can vote in any elections. Foreigners, whether permanent residents or those on a “conditional stay” visa (not yet permanent such as dependent or work visas) are allowed to run for lower level elected offices. One must legally reside in the HKSAR for seven years before applying for permanent residency.
I think a lot fo countries allow permanent residents to vote.
Brian