From the sidelines... Mqurice warns Hu Jintao that he is heading for big trouble by threatening my mates in Taiwan who might want to decide for themselves how they run the joint in Taiwan.
If Hu is determined that Taiwan and Hu's place be run under one constitution, then he can apply for a job with Taiwan as regional condominium manager based in Beijing.
Why Hu thinks it's he who should be the boss of Taiwan rather than the reverse is beyond me. I suppose he thinks he has more people that he is the boss of. Or maybe he has higher mountains [having taken over Tibet]. Or maybe he thinks land area is relevant.
Hu is obviously confused and he needs some instructions on being a good bloke, a good neighbour and to mind his manners.
He came to NZ, but I have no idea what he was discussing. Comrade Clark perhaps was soliciting his support for a job as UN Secretary General in exchange for something or other in the way of trade. He didn't pop round to my place to tell me what he was doing. Very poor form.
I'm sending an emissary to Beijing in a week or two who will see if he can't settle things down and put the place on the true path to Nirvana. At present, Hu is choosing the road to Armageddon. He won't like it there.
I recommend the USA keep the troops in South Korea and Okinawa [which are handy to China]. China is threatening war so in defence of democracy and freedom and all that good stuff, Taiwan needs to be defended against Hu. If Hu wants to blow up people, he'll find that there are very big consequences for him in person. Made in China will go down the gurgler very quickly.
The Nazi totalitarians enjoyed trade with the USA until the USA woke up, very belatedly, to what the autocratic boss types are really like. The USA is currently enjoying vast trade with China and it would NOT be good for that process to be interrupted. But sometimes, the price of freedom and civilization requires an interruption while the totalitarian bossy-britches are dealt with.
Hu has seen what my hard-earned money can pay for in Iraq, with excellent pin-point accuracy of large explosions. Would he really want a dose of that in Beijing, right underneath his armoured limousine? That's what war means. If he threatens war, he should expect to get war.
edition.cnn.com
Please ask somebody in the USA to explain the rules of civilization to Hu. It's not as though Taiwan has a lot of oil or anything that they are stealing by being independent. On the contrary, they are dependent on China for their wealth, through trade and investment.
Taiwan will be independent of China in the same way that New Zealand is independent of Australia. Nominally, but in practise, we need to align our policies with Australia's.
I'm disappointed in Hu. I had high hopes for him. But, he's still new to the job and maybe he just needs some reasoning to understand how to maintain harmony. Maybe George could swing by Beijing on the way home from tea with the Queen and Tony. If he likes, he's welcome to call in here too for a few rounds of golf at some of our beautiful golf courses.
Mqurice
<HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Taiwan has hit back at threats by China to use force against its pro-independence moves, telling Beijing to "mind its own business".
In a statement release late Wednesday, the Taiwan government told China it had no right to interfere with the island's push for a new constitution and referendum bill.
"Taiwan is a democratic country. Only its 23 million people have the right to decide its future and what is best for them," a spokesman for Taiwan's cabinet, Lin Chia-lung, said in the statement.
"We can't tolerate interference with our internal affairs by any undemocratic countries," Reuters reports Lin saying.
The response follows Beijing's threat to use force against Taiwan should the island's pro-independence movement continue to escalate -- the first time since 2000 that China has issued such a warning.
In a tough statement, the Vice-Minister at Beijing's Taiwan Affairs Office Wang Zaixi said Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's recent pro-separatist activities had crossed Beijing's "red line" and that they "run the risk of triggering a war" with the mainland.
"War will break out if the island declares formal independence," state media on Wednesday quoted Wang as saying.
"[The separatist forces] are set to pay a high cost if they think we will not use force against their conspiracy to promote formal independence."
Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province and has threatened to use force if the self-governing island declares independence.
In the past month or so, President Chen has indicated Taipei will be holding referendums on political issues -- and that the island's constitution will be revised in 2006 to reflect full-fledged statehood.
A representative from China's People's Liberation Army also spoke out for the first time since controversy broke out several months ago over Taiwan's "creeping independence" gambit.
The official China News Service quoted a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of Military Science, Luo Yuan, as saying that "the day 'Taiwan independence' is promulgated is also the time when war will be declared."
Luo said a number of senior PLA generals shared this feeling of urgency. ... continued... > |
