Hi guys, I am new here, this is only my second post. After reading some of the comments on the previous thread I feel there are some issues that need to be addressed.

Firstly, I would like to introduce myself. I do not want people on here to say I was feed communist propaganda or something. I just love my country. I am Chinese born and raised in the UK. My parents were originally from Hong Kong. They moved to the UK because the economy was poor then. That was under British rule.

Regarding whether or not China will "invade" Taiwan, and I use that in a very loose sense as how does one invade ones own? This will mainly be down to whether Taiwan will call for independence. With the current situation being unsatisfactory and the Opympics being held in China in 2008, China will have to pospone any form of action. Even if Taiwan calls for independence now, China may have to wait until after 2008, which by that time it may be too late.

Some of you have said that the USA would not want to be on Chinas bad side because of economic reasons and I think that probably is true but at the same time they need to protect Taiwans "independence". Frankly, you cannot do both. It has to be one or the other.

Before I go any further I would like to look into Taiwans history briefly. Before WWII Taiwan was just an ordinary island in the China sea, a part of China. After WWII the two main political parties in China fought it out for control these being the Communist Party and the KMD party. The KMD lost to the Communists and the leader fled to Taiwan. The Communist party had too much work on their hands to be bothered with Taiwan so Taiwan took the side line until recently. Taiwan was always part of China in the first place so why do they deserve independence? Let me ask the Americans on the forum. If, say, California wanted independence would they get it? I think not.

On another note on Tibet. After WWII Tibet welcomed the communist party with open arms to help them. They were not forced to surrender there "country". Now that China has put so much money into Tibet, they want independence. There is a saying in Chinese for this but the English one would be "bite the hand that feeds". That is exactly what they are doing now.

I would like to address some of the comments made by Ken.
Hong Kong has been under the british rule for over a centuary. This has given the local people a taste of "democracy". Now that it is under Chinese rule again they do not like the idea of "big brother" watching them. The major disatisfaction local poeple have is the invasion of privacy. Frankly, every nation has there own rules on national security, be it phone tapping or whatever. China has just made it clear of its intensions.
Corruption will occur in all countries, there is no doubt, as humans are greedy. China is a nation still in its youth and corruption will be part of the growing up proccess. If you look at the history of any fully developed nation, be it the USA or UK etc, there will be corruption.
As with locking people up and letting them die, it probably does happen. But as with corruption it is just aprt of the developing proccess as with any other nation.

And the comment about the crosshair on you M60. If you do not get support from the USA you are stuffed. How about we hit you with a 125mm shell from the type 96 battle tank first. You will not be laughing then.

Thanks for reading.

629:
interesting take...

Yes, Taiwan was part of China, but it became the ' enemy' camp and was isolated.. over time the political entity that established it [ i.e. anti-communist ] developed its own resources and philosphical outlook both as to Chinese government and its place in the world..at present it is pretty diametrically opposed to the governance established on the mainland...so, whether it is a renegade province or a separate nation is irrelevant as it is ' against' the established order of " China " and would be hard to ' re-absorb' into the mother country.. this leaves the big boys two options.. ignore them as best they can , though they are a pain in the butt and a reminder of past ' failures ' or forcibly absorb them into the ' mainstream ' which would be equally difficult as millions of Taiwanese steeped in ' democracy ' will ' surely ' infect ' the politically ' correct ' thinking in Beijing and eleswhere [ just look at the hassle they are having suppressing Hong Kong and Macao and how those hotspots and elsewhere are altering the purity of Communism as it is - possibly a good thing from western perspectives ]...

As for attacking Taiwan.. yeah, they could do it, but the damage to 'face ' world wide would be disasterous [ immediate trade embargoes and economic collapse - despite cheap shoes and shirts at Walmart China needs the west more than the reverse - we can always get cheap stuff from India and a host of other exploited third world locales - Singapore would be more than happy to step into the gap as would Cambodia etc. etc.. ]

The US will go to war [ even if it can't afford it ] with China, if only to make sure it doesn't lose its pre-eminent place in world affairs and to ensure that its own economy won't collapse.. and, in this case, it won't be alone in responding or have to drag no-name countries into the ' coalition' as it will have Britain, Japan and a host of other heavy hitters on its side - China, for all its posturing and bravado does not want to be the instigator of another World War, one that would too easily result in the Big Bang Bombs being deployed...

China will gripe, Taiwan will posture and eventually it will all work out..
My personal take is Taiwan will join sooner rather than later and subvert from within turning China into America-east with wall to wall Walmarts and then the US will really be in trouble...

I would like to point out that not everyone in Taiwan are against re-intergration into China. There are a lot of people who would like that.

I would not say that China needs the West more. It is more like we need you as much as you need us. It will be difficult to relocate all the factories in China in short notice. In the short run it would cause economic instability all over the world if the West were to stop using Chinese labour suddenly.

TBH, I do not think that Britain is likely to join in if things went pear shaped, too much public opposition to Iraq to risk it. Many countries have already expressed their refusal to help the USA if the China-Taiwan "conflict" gets out of hand. Anyway, a world world seems unlikely. Everyone knows what would be the outcome of something like that.

As to Hong Kong having trouble intergrating back into China, that was expected but as with all things like this, it just takes time. There is a "one country, two systems" policy in place so we will have to see how it goes.

Thanks for reading.

China General Threatens U.S. Over Taiwan
Associated Press | July 16, 2005

BEIJING - A Chinese general said Beijing might respond with nuclear weapons if the United States attacked China in a conflict over Taiwan, news reports said Friday.

The State Department rejected the warning as "highly irresponsible."

The exchange could add to tensions with Washington at a time of U.S. worries about China's military buildup and the proposed takeover of the oil company Unocal Corp. by a Chinese state-run company.

"If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition into the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons," Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu, a dean at China's National Defense University, told visiting Hong Kong-based reporters. His remarks were reported by The Asian Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times.

Zhu stressed he was expressing a personal view, not official policy, and was confident that China and the United States would not go to war, the reports said. While Zhu is a serving officer, he isn't involved in policymaking.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he hoped that the comments did not reflect the views of the Chinese government. From what he had seen of the quotes, McCormack said, "I would say they are highly irresponsible."

The Chinese Foreign Ministry didn't respond to requests for comment on the general's remarks. A woman who answered the phone at the protocol office of the Defense Ministry said it had no comment. She refused to give her name.

China claims Taiwan, which split from the mainland in 1949, as part of its territory and has threatened to invade if the self-governing island declares formal independence or puts off talks on unification.

Also Friday, the visiting president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, called on Beijing to open direct talks with Taiwan, saying it would help to promote peace in East Asia.

"The international community would welcome China starting a direct dialogue with Taiwan as a sign of great maturity," Barroso said in a speech at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the government's main think tank.

Zhu was responding to a question about how China might react to U.S. involvement in a conflict with Taiwan, the Journal said. The United States is Taiwan's biggest arms supplier and could be drawn into fighting to help defend the island.

"If the Americans are determined to interfere ... we will be determined to respond, and we Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all cities east of Xi'an," a major city in central China, Zhu said.

"Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of, or two hundreds of, (or) even more cities will be destroyed by the Chinese," he said.

The general said his comments were "my assessment, not the policy of the government," the Journal said.

China exploded its first nuclear weapon in 1964 and has an arsenal of missiles that can carry nuclear warheads.

China has a "no first strike" nuclear policy, but according to the Journal, Zhu said he believed that applied to non-nuclear powers and could be changed.

The general said China has no intention of getting into an arms race with the United States, noting the experience of the former Soviet Union as evidence of the futility of doing so, the report said.

Model 629: You're right. There are many in Taiwan who favor China, which will make it even more difficult in an actual attack.

I've talked with some people who were stationed in Taiwan. Without saying what the US has in Taiwan, I hope we can get the stuff out or destroy the stuff before it falls into China's hands.

As for China's threat. The U.S. needs to have enough nukes to destroy every inch of China, and then have enough left over to destroy any other aggressors.

Have you guy's looked at the number of weapons listed in our arsenal?
Ours
public knowledge scroll down, way down....


China
China