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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (22468)	9/6/2007 2:17:53 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Witness the Axis of Weasels who refused to shut off trade with a kleptocratic tyrannical dictator even after Hussein (Saddam not Obama) had violated multiple UN resolutions. Trade and local economic interests trump foreign affairs except in extreme circumstances. Recency is required for nations to react appropriately to the lessons of history. Sixty years after Hitler, the lessons are all but ignored. RE: "NATO countries wouldn't suspend trade with the US (except under unusual circumstances); they might suspend trade with China " "China probably can't successfully invade Taiwan even if the US doesn't intervene, but they are moving in the direction of gaining that ability." I am not as confident as you. They have a huge army and produce weapons for a small fraction of American costs. They are certainly getting close if they are not there yet. China has its sights set on taking over Taiwan. They have displayed tenacity and I believe that eventually American resolve will wane long enough for China to gain control of Taiwan. "Taiwan would take a lot of damage Patriots aren't a very good defense against missile attack, and Taiwan needs trade." To the best of my knowledge high tech accounts for the largest sector of Taiwanese exports. Silicon exports mostly require highly calibrated machines. The earthquakes from a few years ago caused economic disruption. Bombs would be devastating, even if intercepted. "They could but it’s problematic. The price would go down as they sell. They would have already taken that loss. If they buy back it’s a new investment subject to all the uncertainties of any other investment. The price moves up as they buy, so they have to pay more than the new lower rate. When they stop buying it may move back down because people will be less confident in the dollar after the initial drop, and because the demand from their buying would dry up. Or if they keep buying than any hope to harm the US would be reduced, and they would still have taken the initial loss." They would likely remain the largest force on dollar fluctuation. Since they would know their next several steps they could manipulate the market for quite a while and actually might profit from the changing value of the dollar. "If the suffering in China is bad enough it might even effect China's political stability and the security of its current government." Which is exactly the reason that the Chinese keep the value of their currency down. The rate of increase of wealth is important, if people get richer too fast then they will be less dependent on the nanny state.