Larry,
Are you suggesting that the current Chinese leadership is equivalent to Pol Pot?
Sorry, I thought I did at least in outline say why I thought DMA's scenario was absurd. Maybe I'm wrong, it's happened plenty of times before. However, I have known a number of people who lived and worked in Taiwan in the past, though none of them live there now. At least in the mid and late 80s, they were not terribly concerned about a Chinese invasion. They were more concerned about Deng's health at that time, and what might happen in China after he died. Their greatest fear was that China would break up into 3 or 4 autonomous regions, and create enormous instability in the entire region. On the other hand, they wondered if the country was too large and had too many diverse interests to be ruled as one entity. They were more concerned with being able to exploit its enormous resources in relative safety than anything else. And they were encouraged to "unofficially" create and manage businesses there, which they did with great zeal and enthusiasm, though they had any number of difficulties given the official freeze between the two entities. I can't recall ever hearing the scenario that DMA raised as being a concern. I think it is more of a conservative American fantasy than a probability.
This isn't to say that the people who I knew and spoke with were infallible, or perhaps they have changed their minds in the intervening years. Or that the Chinese leadership couldn't do something stupid and contrary to what I perceive as their business and political interests. Anything is possible, we only need recall such disparate events like Viet Nam or the massacre of Native Americans in US history, the insanity of Pol Pot, as you referred to, or what is happening in Kosovo to be assured of that. But I don't see it. I don't think that the Chinese leadership is either stupid or mad or evil. |
