Taiwan Autonomous Zone
When People’s Daily was speaking out so strongly against Chen Shui-bian last month, I thought it was not very sophisticated of them. In the U.S. or any other democracy I could think of, any appearance at attempted manipulation by an outside party would backfire. So I thought maybe the mainland wanted Chen to win. But now I am not so sure. The whole situation seems very murky, with some conspiracy theorists saying that Chen faked his own assassination attempt to get sympathy votes, while others are saying that the mainland is paying ?protesters? $60 per pop to get them to create instability and give an excuse for stepping in to help calm the renegade province.
It’s impossible to tell exactly what is going on, but the protests and violence continued today. And I am finally starting to realize that this is how it could go down. None of the scenarios about missiles and American anti-missile missiles seem to make any sense any more. I think we are closer to a final resolution of the Taiwan situation than ever before, and even if it doesn’t happen this time, this is how it will happen when it does.
China could simply claim their prerogative to send a police force to ?stabilize the province?. China is overwhelmingly more powerful than Taiwan; and with a divided, chaotic, and confused Taiwan, any sort of conflict would be over in a matter of hours. The U.S. is currently very preoccupied, and there is just about zero chance that any other nations would put their necks on the line to save Taiwan. Even now it is difficult to assess the facts of the situation; how much more so after a police action? Afterward, the U.S. would call for the U.N. to rebuke China and attempt diplomatically to resolve the situation, but China would be able to claim that they were stabilizing a situation that threatened national security, and U.N. does not recognize Taiwan independence anyway. And if economic sanctions did not even work against tiny Iraq, what U.N. member would want to attempt economic warfare against one of the world’s most powerful economies, especially over an ?internal matter?? I believe there is absolutely nothing that the world community could do.