"robert arndt" wrote in message
om...
Taiwan is a nuclear stand-by nation capable of producing a nuclear
weapon in one year. Since China is approx. 2-4 years away from
invading the island according to the latest 2004 Intels then Taiwan
should get the green light from the US and start making them in
preparation for the inevitable attack.
China keeps insisting on taking the island by force, even threatening
neutron weapons now... so let Taiwan produce nukes.
Doesn't make much difference though when a carrier battle group will
likely be in the Taiwan Straight, right? What are the Chinese going to
do, nuke it and face grave consequences like the DPRK? I'm willing to
bet that as invasion approaches we park two carrier battle groups
there and station B-2, F-117, and B-1 aircraft in neighboring friendly
nations like the ROK and Japan.
What a showdown that would be. It would make CNN worth watching again


Rob

I think you are right that Taiwan has the capacity, and I wonder why they
haven't gone ahead and mimicked Israel's strategy of maintaining a "hidden"
nuclear capacity just in case (I assume they have not since the nukes aren't
very useful if nobody knows about them). If Taiwan did deploy nukes, I would
think that China might stop wasting resources on creating the means to
invade Taiwan. And although I know there are many Taiwanese who have no
interest in reunification with China under any circumstances, still I wonder
why Taiwan hasn't used it's status as a democracy to try to encourage reform
in China, something along the lines of a policy stating reunification with
China can only happen once the mainland is also a democracy, which I would
think could strengthen the hand of the PRC reformers. Even if Taiwan isn't
serious in wanting to reunite, this offer makes a lot of sense to me since I
doubt a democratic PRC would been as keen on forced reunification

The US vs. China scenario would be very interesting, though of course I hope
it never comes to that. Current thinking seems to have the US eventually
winning this one, though recent events make me wonder if America still has
the will to fight wars involving significant casualties!

Jarg.