This is from UPI via Newsmax.Com

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

BEIJING -- China has issued a new threat to Taiwan: Talk reunification or face invasion.

In advance of Taiwanese presidential elections March 18, China's State Council issued a policy "white paper" that said China would use "drastic measures," including a military invasion, if Taiwan continued to stray from discussion about rejoining the mainland.

One of the frontrunners in the election, Chen Shui-ban, represents the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, and his possible victory is apparently making Beijing nervous. He openly advocates independence.

Analysts in Beijing see this as a heavy-handed ploy in the war of words between China and Taiwan. Previously, China threatened to invade only if Taiwan declared itself a separate state.

Taiwan's democratically elected government says it should not consider reunifying with the mainland unless Beijing turns to democracy.

Beijing has long seen Taiwan as a renegade island that one-day will come under its rule. Taiwan broke away from the mainland in 1949, when the ruling Nationalists fled the conquering Communists.

Hong Kong and Macao are back in Beijing's grasp, though each has a separate government. Taiwan is the last to come into the fold.

In the white paper, China now maintains that the Nationalists were really just local authorities on Chinese soil. Diplomats here say they were concerned about the March 18 presidential elections in Taiwan and said they wondered what tactics China would use in order to exert influence.

"No one knew what China would say, but we knew the white paper was coming," said one diplomat. "I think most people feared another missile launch."

During the previous election in 1996, China launched missiles across the Taiwan Straits, causing international concern about the stability of the region. The United States sent two aircraft carriers in a show of support to Taipei. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott was in Beijing last week with top White House officials for talks with the Chinese leadership. On the agenda was the subject of Taiwan. Talbott, upon departing after two days of talks, said they had been intense.

The United States is in the precarious diplomatic position of having close commercial and military ties with Taiwan and is sometimes viewed internationally as its protector. Meanwhile, Washington and Beijing have been engaged in a hot and cold relationship, each wanting a foothold in the other's economic marketplace. Last November, the United States signed a landmark trade deal with Beijing that already has eased China's path into the World Trade Organization.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Congress passed legislation called the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, which called for closer military ties between Washington and Taipei. Beijing reacted strongly and demanded the bill be overturned.

China sees this new bill as Washington enabling the island to establish independence. Relations between the two countries hit a new low when NATO bombed the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia last May. Reparations have been agreed between China and the United States for damages in the bombing and the destruction incurred on the U.S. Embassy and official residence in Beijing during the anti-NATO and anti-American riots that followed in Beijing.

Taipei has bought numerous military weapons from the United States, including F-16 fighters, and wants to buy highly sensitive radar equipment that Beijing suspects Taiwan would use to monitor the mainland's coastline facing the island. Beijing pushed Taipei from the United Nations in 1971, and the white paper ruled out the possibility of China allowing Taiwan to enter any world body that requires members to be independent states.

-- Zdude (zdude777@hotmail.com), February 21, 2000

Answers

...c'mon folks!!! Who should be "commander in chief" as we enter these troubled waters??? Gore? Bush? McCain? I know many of you are cynical of all of them, but this "is" the process. Live it, learn it, participate, or shut the fuck up!!

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), February 21, 2000.

china to Taiwan: Submit or die.....who'da thunk it?

bill clinton: the best president communist campaign contributions could buy.

-- Space Cadet (ricki@flight.skool), February 21, 2000.

Vern,

I would be the best man for the job! }:0 But since I could only count on a few hundred votes at best, IMHO, it would be Alan Keyes. Why do I think that? Here's why: Keyes on National Defense

-- Powder (Powder47keg@aol.com), February 21, 2000.

How about getting Bob Dole to run again? At least the Chinese would know he was serious.

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), February 21, 2000.

A major war with one of the Earth's most ruthless regimes,(not to mention the most populous) with a potential pool of 100 million + young males of military age...in addition to nuclear weapons...Who really don't like Westerners...and "our side" led by a decidedly lame duck president who hates and and fears the military and who has actively worked to demoralize, diminish and degrade them (and disperse them to every 2x4 mudhole in the back of beyond). Sure. Let's go! We will do nothing if the mainland Chinese invade. If we send carriers THIS time, they stand an excellent chance of being sunk. We would need a lot of time to move troops that far, and in quantity. It would escalate rapidly or we'd lose.

Since seemingly everyone else has done it, one would hope that the Taiwanese have used a few billion dollars of their trade surplus to acquire some of our nuclear secrets. They'll need them.

Of course, one could argue this: better now than in a few years when the Chinese are at even more of a parity-or even superior.

-- chairborne commando (what-me-worry@armageddon.com), February 21, 2000.

Don't count the Taiwanese out just yet. I think the residents of Taiwan will fight to the last drop of blood and never think of or even mention defeat or surrender. Our fore fathers felt the same way. Too bad many here have lost sight of the truth. It's better to fight the good fight. Remember the Alamo.

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), February 21, 2000.