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Playing Cat and Mouse
I came across this
article on the New York Times today. It says that China is
planning to conduct a large scale military exercise on
Dongshan Island which is lying on the Taiwan Strait. What
they're trying to simulate is the capture of one of Taiwan's
outlying islands and an attack on an aircraft carrier.
It's a frightening prospect.
And I am certain that a lot of Taiwanese won't take this
sitting down. For a while things between Taiwan and the
Mainland were improving.
Through the lure of making good
money these two adversaries made exemptions in order to bridge
the commercial gap between them. But it seems that the money
that these two Chinas make are used to fund their militaries
in order to make their voices louder and stronger.
How would this end? I cannot
help but come up with theories on how this game of cat and
mouse would come to a conclusion.
First theory is that Taiwan
would inevitably declare independence and in turn the Mainland
will launch a full scale attack, probably wiping out half of
Taiwan's population. And then of course the United States and
her allies would attack China. Then China would fight back,
probably spit out a few ICBM's (inter-continental ballistic
missiles) and then the US would retaliate... so on and so
fort... until all the major cities in the world are pulverized
and Earth falls into utter chaos. Very gloomy and the Mainland
government are not fanatical enough to risk destroying itself
like that.
My second theory is that the
Mainland would finally see the commercial value of Taiwan and
would offer concessions just to lure it back. Or even offer an
autonomous status to the Island. But why be part of the
Mainland when Taiwan could keep up the chase and be
"independent"?
For one thing this would mean
less tension between the two and would result in more money
being made. But won't that make the government of China look
like it's embracing capitalism? Still unlikely, but it's
what I'm hoping for.
My third theory is that China
finally agrees on having Taiwan separate, but with a few
conditions. Maybe a condition that Taiwan would remove the
word "China" from its formal name. Duh?
It is very hard to tell, or to
predict what would happen between these two. I am sure that
there are other theories that we could all think of. It is as brain tweezing
as brokering a real peace agreement between Israel and
Palestine. Probably easier to convince some politicians that
the world is flat. A lot easier!
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