China censoring Tibet protests

[bobquasit]

A comment over on the WaPo about Chinese censorship of news of the Tibet protests:

I find myself wondering if the day will come that the Chinese government attempts to extend their censorship to ALL media, world-wide.

Given that they own a trillion dollars worth of US debt, it's clear that we, for one, would not oppose them.

Will we all be Tibet by and by?

Comments

[oldwolf.livejournal.com]

Funkypeacenik posted about this the other day.

We can't afford a war with China, or that nutjob to the south.

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

At this point we can't afford a war with a cranky two-year-old, much less China. But it's disturbing that the State Department took them off the list of human rights abusers...and that China recently increased its military spending enormously.

I believe that they are going to "take" Taiwan soon, and Bush will stand back and do nothing in the process.

[oldwolf.livejournal.com]

Well by that time Gee-dubya won't be in office.

Ack! No!!! Not Taiwan!!!

Well, there goes all of our motherboard manufacturers.

[klyfix.livejournal.com]

On taking Taiwan: If China were to make a serious move (that is, an actual attack) it would be mildly surprising but not totally so if at that point Taiwan revealed their extremely secret nuclear weapons. They did work on mukes at one point and supposedly collaborated with the South Africans who if fact did briefly have a few warheads.

I'm going to grant that it's not likely that they could hide them from the US (unless of course the covert policy of the US is to play along with them) and that the existence of such weapons wouldn't get leaked as happened with Israel's arsenal.

And, to be sure, the "People's Army" hasn't fought a serious foe since the border clashes with Vietnam way back in (I think) the seventies. It's not impossible that it would be very hard for China to take Taiwan by force without flat out leveling the country; heck, I'd not be terribly surprised if they'd be facing an Insurgency funded by overseas Taiwan nationals if they occupied it. Plus the nervousness that this would produce in all their neighbors, many of which have territories that at some point were part of Chinese Empires of the past. Which makes it a very expensive affair that gives them no real benefits beyond making a few zillion year old Communists who still think of themselves as Revolutionaries feel war and fuzzy for "reuniting the Fatherland."

Mind you, it is possible that they might just try to intimidate the Taiwanese into "voluntarily" rejoining a China that they've actually never been a part of. The People's Republic never ruled it, and Republic of China only ruled it from the mainland for less than four years; remember that Japan ruled it for some fifty years and many Taiwanese were perfectly happy with that situation. It's possible that with the right party in power in Taipei and the right combination of carrots as well as sticks they might be able to pull it off. The "carrots" would have to include real autonomy (essentially a self-governing Taiwan in perpetuity, almost like being a Dominion of the British Empire rather than a province) I'd expect.