Will China launch some major and dangerous move against Taiwan—a blockade? missile firings? worse?—next March, just five months ahead of the opening of the triumphant Beijing Olympics (motto: “one world, one dream”)?
Such madness seems inconceivable. Yet the pattern of Beijing’s diplomacy with respect to Taiwan’s referendum on its application to the United Nations is convincing me that some such action is possible, even likely.
China is intent on denying any international status to Taiwan, a democratic country of some 23 million people having a gross national product approaching four hundred billion dollars.
She was expelled from the UN in 1971 when China joined and has failed a dozen times to rejoin thereafter. Now she plans a referendum on how to word her next application. (I have explained these basic issues in an earlier posting.)
As China seeks to stanch leaks in the diplomatic embargo, it is becoming clear that Beijing has decided to make the referendum into a casus belli: into the “red line,” the provocation that cannot be tolerated and that must force her to turn to military coercion. She is preparing the ground carefully, lining up support for her position from the very countries that might back Taiwan.
Thus, for months last year the Chinese embassy hammered the relevant American Deputy Assistant Secretary of State with threats. The result: on August 27, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte stated unequivocally that “any kind of provocative steps” on Taiwan’s part were unacceptable.
Shortly thereafter, Chinese President Hu Jintao directly warned President Bush “that this year and the next will be a ‘highly dangerous period’ in the Taiwan Strait.” He referred, ominously, to China’s 2005 “Anti-Secession Law,” which requires the use of “nonpeaceful means” to counter “major incidents entailing Taiwan’s secession from China.” Hu stated that the referendum would be just such a “major incident.”
Now France and Britain have, unwittingly I think, added their signatures to the international permission slip that China appears to be preparing. According to Reuters, on November 26, French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated “that France opposes Taiwan’s contentious plan to hold a referendum on UN membership next year.” Then, according to AFP, Foreign Secretary David Miliband made clear on December 5 Britain’s opposition to the referendum on pushing for UN membership, adding that any “reckless maneuvers” were to be “deplored.”
Without insistent Chinese prompting, one suspects, neither Negroponte nor Sarkozy nor Miliband would have spoken. Yet all did, in complete ignorance, one suspects, of the net China is weaving.
For who will protest or act if China does use the referendum as a pretext for military action next March? One would expect democratic powers such as the United States, France, and Britain to take the lead. But they have already stated their support for China’s political position (though not for force). My fear is that such statements of seeming acquiescence may persuade China that she could get away with a turn to force. Such miscalculation could in fact lead to war.
“It’s partly because the world sees the Palestinians as uncivilized savages, and you simply can’t expect any better from them.”
What’s the likelihood of ‘civilizing’ them? Yet another statistical improbability in this discussion.
http://afencepost.blogspot.com/2009/01/quicksand-of-reason.html
It’s simple: Palestinian atrocities simply don’t matter.
don’t you think israel and its supporters would be better off rhetorically and strategically if they proceeded from this assumption…clearly, the UN’s public declarations reflect this; so does the EU’s…
how foolish would it be to say to chicken littles of disproportionality that ‘since you don’t care about palestinian atrocities, we don’t consider your comments or criticisms valid…when you are half as interested in protecting our children as you are hamas’ terrorists, who use thier children as shields, then we’ll talk…doesn’t have to be equal – just half…
Back your statements up, Thayer. Who said Palestinian atrocities don’t matter? Give us some examples.
After all, how often do you hear about Hamas’s charter, which explicitly calls for the extermination of the state of Israel and its replacement with an Islamist regime?
I hear it ALL THE TIME
“It’s partly because the world sees the Palestinians as uncivilized savages, and you simply can’t expect any better from them. It’s partly because the atrocities are primarily targeted against Jews, and that’s not that not a big deal for a good portion of the world. ”
exactly. people are racist towards the muslims and anti semetic towards the jews.
what’s your point?
It appears sarcasm and irony are lost on a number of posters here too, JT.
Lester, since you asked, I’ll explain it from my viewpoint. Thayer and Yourish are displeased that the world leans toward allowing Muslims to kill Jews and other non-Muslims, which might include you. They think that’s bad. They express moral outrage in the hope that people will wake up and see the difference between right and wrong which would go far toward solving the problem of Islamic terrorism. That’s the point.
Ed: So Jews are “right” and Muslims are “wrong,” is that your point?
It is right when Israel bombs a palestinian school?
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/09/zeitoun.gaza.israel/index.html
“Israel kills 30 civilians are refugee shelter”
But hey, they’re right and Muslims are wrong.
8:
When a school is being used as a military platform for the purpose of waging war its destruction is morally appropriate under any rule of war known to me. It has shed the right to be classified as a “school”, whatever its prior history may have been.
ed- well, fine they think it’s wrong. MY point is what does that mean in practical terms? if the nazis were coming for us we wouldn’t get big megaphones and call them anti semites.
yes, the world is anti semetic. thus, it makes every little sense for israel to piss them off with dumb crap like this joke of a war
I find it hard to believe that Hamas thugs firing 122mm Grad artillery rockets from improvised launchers can hit anything smaller than a city block. The Grad is an unguided barrage rocket with a very large CEP, which is why, in conventional armies, they are in salvo from multiple launchers (much like the much more accurate U.S. Multiple Launch Rocket System). In Soviet military doctrine, these are suppressive weapons par excellence, and are usually fired by whole battalions or even regiments against area targets that usually cover a whole 1 km x 1 km grid square. If I wanted to hit a school, which might be perhaps 50 x 25 meters, I would have to launch dozens of rockets against it to ensure a hit.
Probably they are just aiming more of their rockets against residential areas where the schools are located, and allow the law of averages to work itself out. Since the Grad has a longer range, it can be launched against more areas with more targets. Also, inaccurate as it is, it is much more accurate than the home-made Qasam rockets previously used,
Commentary never fails to amuse me. This posting is wonderful for its hypocrisy, drawing inferences from patterns of Arab violence while resolutely refusing to draw inferences from patterns of Israeli violence. Of course, when the Israelis are the Master Race, they are beyond ordinary rules or analysis, right? The Final Solution awaits.
While I don’t doubt the savage intent of Hamas, their ability to target schools is extremely unlikely. As #12 points out, and as the references say, the grads are NOT accurate, contrary to the article.
A rocket would have to be aimed within about .3 degrees of accuracy to hit a school at the grad ranges, in two dimensions (azimuth, elevation). Hamas certainly isn’t using that kind of precision, and the grad is not designed for precision strikes. It is designed to be fired in a barrage aimed at a general area.
For a reasonable statistical inference to be drawn, one would want to see the distribution of grad hits. If they clustered around schools, then targeting of schools might be inferred.
But the article gives ZERO evidence of this.
Hamas is evil, but it is foolish to make assertions about them that are demonstrably wrong.
Moore, you’rre clearly an antisemitical self hating Jew who needs re-education! Facts are antisemitic! Don’t you realize that, you self hating fool?
While the Grad was designed to be used one way, it currently isn’t being used as designed.
Artillery shells and cell phones weren’t designed to be IED’s, but they are being used as such.
Who is certain what technology is being used to aim Hamas Grad rockets? And if there is new technology, are all rockets aimed with it or only some? These are interesting questions to pursue.
What I presume the article means to suggest is that perhaps they are now being used with an accuracy they are not designed for. One would need to analyze the total number of Grads launched in a time period, the probability of a Grad hitting a school when aimed at a residential area in general and the total hitting schools, to come up with a real statistical analysis, and this post as well as the comments fail to strongly indicate the denominator and published accuracy with enough specificity to make an argument one way or another.
Thus JGT’s thesis may be relatively weak but appealing and worth considering, and the counter arguments just as weak but appealing to their proponents.
And as the Post states at the end, rockets continue to fall on Israel and its schools, Israel continues its attempt to stop them, while we argue how many Grad rockets can hit the head of a pin.
Yep, that’s a sad situation over there. The infiltrators are kicking up dust between Israel and Palestine, and of course, it’s the innocents including children that have to suffer. There is no such thing as an Islamic Regime, only the militant extremists that are misguided into believing that war is in the name of Allah. The Jews, Islam and Christianity share the same faith and that is what the extremists are trying to destroy so they can control the area. I can imagine Iran, Pakistan, and India could be on the receiving end of that crisis that Biden and Powell spoke about, and Obama already has it on the platter: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1053545.html