I only wrote briefly about the danger posed by totalitarian China yesterday - today, Beijing issued a statement of the kind that only strongmen make:
China, in its strongest statement yet on the political crisis convulsing Taiwan since its controversial election, warned on Friday it would not stand idly by if the situation on the island spirals out of control.Analysts said the strong words were aimed at preventing Taiwan independence backers from pushing their agenda after Saturday's narrow re-election of President Chen Shui-bian in a contest immediately rejected by the opposition.
"We will not sit by watching should the post-election situation in Taiwan get out of control, leading to social turmoil, endangering the lives and property of our flesh-and-blood brothers and affecting stability across the Taiwan strait," Beijing's policy-making Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement.
China may simply be taking the opportunity of Taiwan's civil unrest to remind the democratic island and its allies that from Beijing's window, there's a land-bridge connecting Taiwan to the mainland. What if the Chinese are serious - incredibly so, against an American opponent that is superior even with its current military obligations? President Bush has engaged in his share of realpolitik appeasement - though the White House is nowhere near Jacques Chirac's eager coziness with the Red menace as of late. The first betrayal of democratic peoples is one of strategic, diplomatic necessity; the second, amoral, materialistic gluttony. In April of 2001, Bush warned China that America would do "whatever it takes" to defend its Pacific ally. That promise is even more important today - as Victor Davis Hanson writes in National Review, "It is never wrong to be on the side of freedom — never." Ultimately, the president understands this. For China's sake, this had better be a lot of hot air.
ATTABOY, CHEN: Taiwan's president told China to pound salt:
Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council and Nationalist Party spokesman Alex Tsai Cheng-yuan said in separate statements that China should stay out of Taiwan's domestic affairs and any attempt to interfere would turn the island's residents against the mainland.
Because if you haven't got free will, what have you got?