ituation, that means we will defend them against China. We have troops there and we sent our fleet to the straits to warn off the Chinese in 1996 when they held war games that resembled an attack on Taiwan. That position still stands and it is the main reason that war is imminent. Should China cross to Taiwan, you can bet that every warhead that we have will be pointed at Chinese targets (assuming that they are not already) and that our troops and ships will be mobilized to counter attack. The other side is that China wants Taiwan at any cost and is willing to risk military defeat to get it. They are not happy with the state of negotiations for reunification and it appears that they will not become happy, so they will attack; it is just a question of how soon. So why don’t we leave them alone and let them do it to avoid a costly war, and move in for a trade agreement?The answer to that question is that that would be grossly un-American. We go to bat for our allies; we restructured our army to save the French in World War I, and in World War II we went in to save Europe from the Germans. We went to Korea to protect Japan (among other things) and we helped the French again in Vietnam (again among other things) and we have stepped in many other conflicts to protect the interests of our allies. To not do so in this instance would be to go back on our history and would contradict everything we stand for in our international policy. This situation has not reached crisis level yet, but it seems impossible to avoid a crisis for too long. The stubbornness of China on the issue, and our stubbornness to accept their answer will lead into escalating tensions and war. The nuclear question still looms over our heads, this time with the addition of the neutron bomb technology that both countries possess, so, in all likelihood, it will be more of a cold war than an actual armed conflict. I don’t think that either country is stu...
