I just got finished reading a chilling report that China is threatening a horrendous was with the U.S. if we intervene militarly over them invading Tawain. Hello is any body concerned about this. There should be the highest level meeting at the U.N. now to difuse this situation before it's to late. I took special NBC warfare classes in the service, I worked in areas that contained these monster weapons,I understand the world wide medical consequences of a nuclear war. Are these guys out of there F---ing mind. This situation needs to be dealt with now with firm solutions. I would suggest that they immediately embargo China until they knock off this War talk. Send a very strong message that we will not tolerate this stance of potential aggression and it will not be business as usual until this War talk ceases.. I think we have a Cuba missle crisis developing in Asia. The Joint chiefs of staff, the secretary of defense, the president and the speaker of the House should unite on the white house lawn and put China on notice that it will not tolerate a military action against any of our Seato member nations. Greenpece and other no nukes organizations should march on the U.N in mass numbers until they address this potential war brewing over Tawain. If they Lanuch our kid's will have no future......Be active or become radioactive. this is the real deal folks. If you know people in the no nukes organizations or physicans for social responsibility give them a call, It's time to muster all hands on deck for this one. May God direct your way, God bless you.

-- y2k aware mike (y2k aware mike @ conservation .com), August 19, 1999

Answers

get a grip mike, if it,s GOD,S WILL that we get nuked, all the worry in the world 'won,t stop it.DON,T let fear grip you, PRAY. & LEAVE IT IN god,s hands.**WHO,S IN CONTROL??**this is GOD,S WORLD=not china,s. NYTOL.

-- war,s & rumor,s of war. (dogs@zianet.com), August 19, 1999.

It is the FREE WILL of China's leaders that appears to have mike worried, al-d. Could the Loving God I know nuke us? Hardly. Would this Loving God allow us to nuke each other? Been there done that.

I agree with you al-d, letgo=letGod.

-- Bingo1 (howe9@pop.shentel.net), August 19, 1999.

Sorry mike, I make no comment about the rest of your thesis, but the following:

"I would suggest that they immediately embargo China until they knock off this War talk. "

will never happen. All the biz leaders who bribed our lawmakers with campaign contributions will prevent it. Walmart would be completely out of business if they can't get their Chinese Nike knock-offs.

Jolly

-- Jollyprez (jolly@prez.com), August 19, 1999.

Mike,

And to add to what Jolly said, an embargo actually helps the mega rich. It kills the poor, not the govt. Kind of a social cleansing of the lower welfare state of people, therefore increasing the wealth of the wealthy by taking the poor off their backs. A short term embargo is very attractive when removal of the long term needy is the reward.

I would never encourage anyone I know to deal with the "World Govt.". I say let er rip. America needs a wake up call. Her greed has surpassed her wisdom exponententionaly!

"The Joint chiefs of staff, the secretary of defense, the president and the speaker of the House should unite on the white house lawn" and confess their sins against the population of the U.S. and accept the consequences of their deeds.

rant off.

sorry Mike, I believe you have the best of intentions.

-- R. Wright (blaklodg@hotmail.com), August 19, 1999.

darn i shouldn,t a had that miiiidnite snack. yo,bingo i like that, same goes for y2k=let go=&=let GOD, like i say Y2K is a dry-run,the real funky stuff 'comes later.great time to be alive huh?watching=prophecy unfold. do i hear=hoofbeat,s.

-- moonbeam. (dogs@zianet.com), August 19, 1999.

I maintain my belief that the current administration will do nothing. Taiwan is lost already. Here are some points to speculate on: 1. Will Taiwan defend itself? If there isn't some sort of political compromise (read sellout) that is... 2. The Taiwanese Air Force is reporting multiple defects in the 100 or so F-16's they bought from us. 3. If the Taiwanese decide to "beat feet" (if the exodus hasn't started already) where will they go? The Phillipines? The U.S.? Wouldn't the Clinton's love THAT one. 4. The Taiwanese are R-I-C-H. What's the chance that they have acquired/developed a few nukes? 5. If we reluctantly intervene, what is the likelyhood that China will let go the leash and allow N. Korea to attack S. Korea or Japan?

-- Greg Lawrence (greg@speakeasy.org), August 19, 1999.

Madelin Albright was visiting Asia very recently, and was scheduled to meet the Chinese and several other diplomats when she got a call to come to Kosovo to meet with Clinton and Blair. So she made a video of herself apoligising for standing them up but explaining that "we have a little treat for you to make up for it"; Out comes Kurt Campbell,(deputy secretary of state) dressed up like Madelin Albright and he/she does a skit about "Hegemony" I'm not making this up. It was reported that the chinese laughed politely.

-- KoFE (your@town.USA), August 19, 1999.

"Nothing happens in politics that was not orchestrated behind the scenes." Sound cynical? Franklin Roosevelt, the second American dictator, said it. (Lincoln being the first)

-- Spidey (in@jam.commie), August 19, 1999.

***mike:

You asked if these guys are out of their minds: yes.

I heard its Clintons birthday today. A radio commentator was speculating how he'd be celebrating it: "Well, first he'll get a cigar....."

Really! Clinton is an idiot, incompetent, a traitor, or all of these. He and the rest (REP&DEM) fight over a non-existant surplus and TRUST nothing will happen. We are in the hands of idiots for leaders.

Only God is keeping the world from blowing apart right now, when he'll let one of these numerous crazies try "it", I don't know. The next 4 months seems a perfect time.

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), August 19, 1999.

I agree with Gregg. Taiwan is gone, it's a done deal. The way I see things unfolding,

- A massive global economic collapse followed by

- A severely y2k-hobbled worldwide production and distribution network followed by

- Major political upheaval in the usual trouble spots, and quite possibly in the US, followed by

- Worsening world climate and natural disasters.

I'm not psychic, and I'm not a doomsayer; I'm simply connecting the dots and explaining the pattern I see.

-- a (a@a.a), August 19, 1999.

Greg asks: "If the Taiwanese decide to "beat feet" (if the exodus hasn't started already) where will they go?"

The island nation of Dominica, in the Caribbean, offers what it calls "Economic Citizenship." In a nutshell, this means that for a price (and a pretty steep price) one can, in effect, buy Dominican "citizenship", including a Dominican passport. This entitles the holder of the passport to travel without a visa to any Commonwealth country. It's a way to get foreign investment into the country, and has obvious benefits for the buyer. I would imagine that there are many small, poor countries that do this kind of thing.

I don't remember now where I saw this, but Taiwan is the country with the largest number of "Economic Citizens" of Dominica, something like 3,000 (the last time I checked). That's not a particularly significant number, except for the fact that they're probably all pretty rich.

Since going there last year to snorkel, I've sent e-mail to a guy there who runs the local ISP. I'll e-mail him and see if he's noticed an increase in the number of Taiwanese on the island. This would would be a small clue, but a clue none the less.

BTW - Dominica may be the most beautiful place in the world.

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), August 19, 1999.

Mike, you make some excellent points. However, global expressions of outrage, as you call for, are unlikely to be effective. Look at the Tien An Men incident. Everbody was saying "the Chinese gov will not come down hard - they know that to do so would cripple business development forever." In practice however, they came down hard and a few years later, you couldn't tell it had ever happened.

-- Ct Vronsky (vronsky@anna.com), August 19, 1999.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 1999

"CHINA'S OPTIONS AGAINST TAIWAN ARE LIMITED..."

By Gerald Segal [Mr. Segal is director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London]

Six weeks after Taiwan's President Lee Teng-hui said that Taipei's relationship with mainland china should be on a "special state-to-state basis," the rumbling of military thunder from the other side of the Taiwan Strait is growing louder... [snip]

But there are also good reasons to believe that this thunder will amount to little more than noise. It is true that China has military options and could cause great damage to Taiwan. China must calculate, however, that any serious military option will be met with at least the same kind of robust U.S. response -- the deployment of two aircraft carrier battle groups -- that warned China in 1996 against escalating its missile tests in the open sea near Taiwan. As long as the U.S. remains firm, China is a weak power even on its own maritime frontier.

China certainly has no credible capability for a full-scale invasion. Taiwan itself could turn back an initial attempt, and it certainly could hold on long enough for the American fleet to arrive. Nor is it plausible to think China could seize offshore islands such as Quemoy or Matsu without considerable cost; the U.S. could hardly view such action as less serious that missle firings into empty sea. If China seized the islands, the U.S.,the wider world and certainly East Asia would abandon the notion of Beijing as a peaceful international partner and would place more emphasis on effective military deterrence. Foreign investment in a "rogue" China would plummet.

China would also be making a major mistake if it thought that the U.S. had only simplistic military options... The U.S., with its modern technology, especially in maritime and air warfare, has what in the jargon is known as "escalation dominance" over China. For instance, if China thought it could get away with seizing Taiwanese ships, the U.S. could blind Chinese radar so Taiwan could retaliate and pick up "lost" mainland ships. If China shot down Taiwan's aircraft, the island might well begin to get the best U.S. forward intelligence so it could shoot down Chinese aircraft to even the balance. If China wanted to move up the ladder of escalation and launch missile strikes, the U.S. could help Taiwan target Chinese sites or even use its current limited antimissle forces to pick off an incoming missile, thereby demonstrating American resolve.

... a strike on a civil nuclear powerplant in Taiwan would be beyond strategic comprehension, since it would only succeed in branding China as a military and environemtnal outlaw...

... unless China decided to take its missiles "downtown" into Taipei and knock out power and water, the Taiwanese public's morale would hold long enough for the U.S. to threaten retaliatory strikes... Washington's lack of alarm in the wake of China's Aug 3 test-firing of a Dongfeng 31 intercontinental missile intended for use against the U.S. suggests just how bereft Bejing is of plausible orthodox military options.

[snip]

Still, it's possible that the Chinese leadership does not recognize how limited its powers really are, and thus may not be so sensible in eschewing military force. China may be treated with exaggerated respect by the outside world as a great power, but the reality of the Taiwan crisis is that this power cannot even impose its military or political will in its front yard and on the most sensitive of issues. Precisely because this reality is so frustrating to Chinese military and civilian nationalists, the logic of a relatively peaceful Taiwan Strait may not hold...

[snip]

###

-- M.C. Hicks (mhicks@greenwich.com), August 19, 1999.

AFTER THE RETURN OF MESSIAH, CHINA WILL BE SAYING=DAMN WHY DID WE LET THAT DRAGON SCREW WITH OUR MIND,S.

-- IT,S ALL IN THE BOOK. (dogs@zianet.com), August 19, 1999.

God may pull the strings, but I am the puppet that dances. If I "let go", then god just hooks the strings on to someone else and lets me fall.

China is just practicing "brinksmanship". If we all just set back and say, "Fine. Take it.", they will. If there's a concerted effort to show that this is taken seriously, they won't. They're just trying to find out how preoccupied with other matters the world is; to see if this is their big opportunity.

The U.S. and Britain still bogged down with Yugoslavia and Iraq, the Russians with Dagestan, the whole world in a dither over Y2K; they've advanced a pawn to see if we're so focused on our threatened bishop, that we don't see the coming trap for our knight, so to speak.

China is not Yugoslavia. The Chinese will not be able to bank on world sympathies that a big brutish power is picking on them, the way Milosovich did (with decidely mixed results, anyway). They will face repercussions one way or another, with certainty.

China wants Taiwan back, but China will wait till they can do it, at the lowest possible cost.

I do agree however that the Taiwanese have to face the inevitability of the situation. Sooner or later, the Chinese will have their "golden moment". The world, if not now, will at some point be too preoccupied to come to their aid. If I were Taiwan, I'd start negotiating for the most advantageous rejoining of the fold.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), August 19, 1999.

Kiss Taiwan goodbye in 2000.

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), August 19, 1999.