Saturday, October 18, 2008

Unrequited Love

China will not halt their deployment of surface-to-surface missiles aimed at Taiwan (registration required) even though Taiwan is determined to make Peking love them and respect them:

Xu Caihou, vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, told a visiting delegation from Japan's Self-Defense Force in July that even though the more moderate and cautious Kuomintang Party had come to power in Taiwan, the hostile relationship between the two sides had not ended and China would not downgrade its military preparedness with regard to Taiwan.


That's how the Taiwanese media interpret the statement, although I don't know why the Taiwanese would interpret the apparently broad statement about military preparedness to only the narrow issue of missiles.

It's almost as if the media insists on believing that the Chinese military threat consists of a mere drive-by shooting rather than an invasion threat (which would still look like this regardless of when it is executed).

Taiwan needs to keep their powder dry and mentally prepare for the worst.