Originally posted by: AndrewR
It's unlikely that Japan will sit idly by while that happens also.
Japan's Constitution forbids offensive action. This was a condition of the World War II armistace. Because of this Japan will not be intervening on any front as far as I am concerned. Any suggestion is foolish and short minded.
As to whether the US will intervene... Think about this... Everytime the US government overspends where do you think they get the money from??? Or rather,
WHO do you think they get the money from??? They get the money from the Japanese and the Chinese buying and financing US government bonds i.e. debt.
So, since the Bushies in the White House have been driving our government into debt guess WHO has been buying up all our debt and financing our ailing economy... You guessed it! In large part the Chinese have been providing the money for our military, social programs, and day to day government operations by loaning money to our US government to cover our short falls, debts, and deficits.
So when ever you see on the news there is a deficit in the budget or they are talking about debt just remember:
This is the reason our Government is powerless to take affirmative diplomatic or militaristic action against North Korea to deter their nuclear weapons program.
This is the reason Taiwan is not able to declare independence because we don't want daddy China money bags coming over and saying "We OWN YOU now STOP military intervention or we kill your economy and your puny nation with it!"
This is the reason we cannot force China to stop illegal trade practices which give our nation and our people a HUGE disadvantage when it comes to being competitive in the world wide labor market.
This is the reason chinese labor is so cheap, because of the Chinese goverment is keeping their exchange rates with US dollars low making things in China artificiially cheaper, and why the chinese people are forced to live on so little.
For all you who think we could win militarily,
I can see it happening but not without the United States being ruined financially, economically, and having millions of our sons and daughters sent to their deaths. Cause I can tell you this, it wont stop at Taiwan, we will have to take the
WHOLE OF CHINA before this issue is to be resolved by going to war. If you think Iraq is a mess, China would be hell on earth to rebuild after a full scale war.
You also have to think about alliances:
Russia, will side with China because of their close relations from their common Communist history and good relations from years past. Need I remind you Russia is lead by a former Communist advocate who, based on recent Russian elections, will stoop to any low to keep his grasp on power. There goes our cheaper Russian oil. You can forget about Arab oil by the way, we invaded Iraq remember? We humiliated the Arabs at Al Ghraib Prison, in a way which will never easily be forgotten, if you think they are going to help us by covering for the loss of Russian oil I would think again.
France and Germany see us as an overbearing disgrace to international cooperation and the fight for peace. This same disgrace has been brought on to Britian because of their involvment with the invasion of Iraq. Remember the phrase: "Burn me once shame on you, Burn me twice shame on me!" So, can we count on their support? MAYBE, and only maybe because of our current strained relations. I do realize there is such a thing as NATO but even then all NATO nations must vote and agree to go to war. Taiwan is not a member of NATO, Taiwan is a US concern not DIRECTLY affecting NATO. From NATO's perspective this would not be their issue.
I have heard talk of the UN. As far as I am concerned the UN is about as effective at stopping a war as taking the welcome mat away from your front door to stop people from coming into or visiting your house. I cite Sudan and our own invasion of Iraq as proof of this.
So there you have it my perspective.