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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (10725)	4/8/2001 11:22:53 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

China issues regular threats to invade Taiwan, for domestic political purposes and to attempt to influence Taiwanese politics. The most recent round was an attempt to influence a Taiwanese election. The attempt failed; the party that the mainland was trying to keep out of power won. There was no war; within days relations between the countries were back to business as usual, with both sides bending over backwards to conciliate. No responsible military analysts took the threats seriously; even at the peak of the word war absolutely no military mobilization took place. The Chinese military has copious amounts of manpower, but it is very poorly suited to an invasion. Their navy and air force are primitive; airlift and sealift capacity is minimal. Logistics systems could not support more than a very small and very brief action outside China. The Chinese military is structured to repel attack, with emphasis on the potential enemy to the northeast, not to impose force outside the country. The last Chinese military venture abroad ended very badly for China, and that was against a much smaller neighbor under circumstances that allowed direct land supply. I don't think anybody familiar with the Chinese military even thinks that the Chinese are capable of successfully invading Taiwan. Nor is there any reason for them to do so; they are making plenty of money doing business with Taiwan, and they can wait for reunification. The Chinese could have taken Hong Kong and Macao by force at any time in the last 50 years. They waited, and did it the easy way. They could have taken the offshore islands now occupied by Taiwan at any time. They've never done it. They are not nearly as aggressively inclined as some would have you believe.