Scott:
Piece below is from WSJ
Ain't the mix of democracy and nationalism just so much fun.
We can all understand the calculus.
The odds are that it will pass with some saber rattling. However recall that August 1939 in Europe and November 1941 in the Pacific are not the only roads to war. Both of those featured a deliberate decision for war on at least one side. At least as often in human history you have messes like the Falklands or the first Gulf War where nobody especially wanted war but domestic posturing lead to a situation where events assumed a life of their own. We got out of thinking that way with world wars 2 and 3. Hitler decided on war with Poland. Chambberlain decided that a Polish War meant a general European War. Whoever was making the decisions in Tokyo decided that war was better than capitulation to blockade. We are still debating who on the US side made the decision to turn FDR's July proclaimation into a oil blockade.
The 1967 war could be a good case in point. Nasser responded to an inter-Arab propaganda war and some Soviet disinformation by asking the UN to leave. The UN surprised him by doing so. Israel surprised him by not immediately reacting. The West surprised him by doing squat to honor their prior guarantees to Israel. Nasser's Arabic propaganda bombast assumed a life of its own and events spun out of control.
A Taiwan Straits War is a potentially huge world event. It would be nice if our glorious Shrub would be more concerned with that than with not rattling the cages of the Taiwan Lobby in the GOP. I understand the domestic politics. I understand the political calculus. I understand that this will all probably blow over on its own. I understand that even a crisis probably won't lead to a war that is in no one's interests and would cripple all 3 economies. However what low percentage chance of a nuked LA is worth not clearly stating to Taiwan what the limits of stupidity are beyond which they are on their own?
Yes I tend to better safe than sorry. Wouldn't the world have been better off had the Germans clearly told the Czar that mobilization meant war and the British not clearly told the Germans that war meant that the UK would side with France in 1914?
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Taiwan Approaching the Precipice
President Chen Shui-bian is trying to steer a course toward Taiwanese independence that goes just far enough to infuriate China into threatening the island, but not so far as to spark a war. That's the real story behind all the palaver over referendums and constitutional changes over the past few weeks.
It might seem strange that a Taiwanese leader would want China to crank up its bellicose rhetoric or conduct military exercises clearly aimed at convincing voters not to re-elect him in next March's presidential election. But in fact the logic is simple to understand. Like many people living in the shadow of a hostile power, Taiwanese are proud and stubborn. Threats of war would most likely have the opposite of the intended effect. That's what happened in 1996 when China fired missiles into the Taiwan Strait to discredit then President Lee Teng-hui, and in 2000 when Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji wagged his finger at the Taiwanese telling them not to vote for Chen Shui-bian.
Beijing is now wise to its negative persuasive power, and has been staying on the sidelines this time. Meanwhile the opposition nationalists, whose votes were split between two candidates in the last election, have patched up their differences. For a while it looked like Mr. Chen was in serious trouble.
So the president chose a cynical course of action. He upped the ante, proposing the holding of referendums and the writing of a new constitution under the guise of promoting democracy. Both of these reforms stir up emotive issues because over a decade ago, Mr. Chen's Democratic Progressive Party called for Taiwan to formally declare itself independent by holding a referendum. Since then Beijing has fulminated endlessly against the DPP as the party of independence.
Unfortunately for Mr. Chen, the opposition majority in the legislature stole his thunder. They embraced the idea of holding referendums but neutralized the independence aspect by placing a restriction in the law so that issues of sovereignty and territory can only be put to a direct vote if there is an imminent threat. Like other democracies, Taiwan would be able to use referendums to solve thorny issues. And since the president promised in his inaugural address not to seek a referendum on independence unless China attacked, he didn't have grounds for complaint.
Nevertheless, in the last few days Mr. Chen has pressed ahead anyway. Incredibly, he wants to invoke the new law's provision for holding a referendum when Taiwan is under imminent threat. As justification he cites China's deployment of 496 missiles capable of hitting the island, which he calls preparation for an invasion. He hasn't specified exactly what the vote would decide, but his intention is fairly clear from his statements: "If we wait for the old Communists to really attack us, then we won't have time, and holding a referendum would be useless." Since China has often warned that this would constitute a casus belli, Mr. Chen is flirting with disaster like never before.
At this point such a vote looks unlikely to happen, but it can't be dismissed entirely. With months to go before the election it's difficult to predict whether Mr. Chen's call will gain traction with the public. And if Beijing were to start preparing for war, the domestic political equation could change in unpredictable ways.
However, there are some early signs that Taiwanese are growing disillusioned with Mr. Chen's relentless China-baiting. Even the pro-independence Taipei Times yesterday editorialized for the president to cool it, saying that his idea of a "defensive referendum" is "foolish and antagonistic and can only damage Chen in the election campaign."
There is some historical precedent here. When the DPP added a pro-independence plank to its platform in 1991, it suffered setbacks in several elections over the following years. The public perceived the party as a troublemaker and unworthy of mainstream support. It was only around 1996 that this changed. While not repudiating independence, the DPP moved toward the center by saying that since Taiwan was already de facto independent there was no need for a formal declaration. At the same time, the People's Liberation Army began lobbing missiles into the Taiwan Strait, also increasing public support for politicians perceived as tough on China.
Today China has largely returned to its pre-1996 moderate stance on Taiwan, and the DPP is once again a troublemaker. Could Taiwanese voters also repeat the past by punishing the DPP at the polls? That's hard to say, because the electorate has changed so much in this period. But one can hope that it's a question that Beijing will ponder before it lets the PLA pitbull off its leash.
There is a Chinese saying that sums up this situation well: Rein in the horse before reaching the precipice. Mr. Chen appears to be taking Taiwan right up to the brink in his bid for re-election. Ultimately the Taiwanese people have to decide if he is acting in their best interests, and whether to rein him in.
posted by scott 6:32 AM