Brain Fertilizer

Various takes on China's new Anti-Secession Law

This article seems to be one of the best and most balanced.

I find it disturbing that China passed a law authorizing the use of force to prevent Taiwan from declaring independence. Then again, if Taiwan President Chen Shuibian hadn't decided to base his political career on brinkmanship regarding independence, China wouldn't feel forced toward this course of action.

I'm wondering if the lesson China took from the US invasion of Iraq is that a nation may use military force in defiance of the UN in order to secure its own national interest. There is now that plausible precedent. We could argue that the terrorist attacks on 9/11 created a unique situation for the United States that resulted in the invasion of Iraq, but they could always counter that we had resolved that issue with our invasion of Afghanistan. I'm also fairly certain Taiwan is covertly pursuing a nuclear weapon for deterrence purposes (much like Israel is assumed to have done), so if China had any evidence of that (or could fabricate some), they could claim "ensuring Taiwan isn't preparing WMD" as a pretext.

This is getting a little scary, to tell the truth.