FoxNews reported last week in an AP article that manages to avoid using the word "communist": China: Force Against Taiwan May Be 'Unavoidable'.
Raising the stakes in an already tense situation, China threatened in remarks published Wednesday that "the use of force may become unavoidable" if Taiwan pursues independence -- the mainland's strongest statement in years against its archrival. [...]"If the Taiwan authorities collude with all ... forces to openly engage in pro-independence activities and challenge the mainland and the one-China principle, the use of force may become unavoidable," Wang [Zaixi, a top mainland official who deals with the Taiwan issue,] was quoted as saying in the China Daily.
Separatists were "set to pay a high cost if they think we will not use force," Wang said. "Taiwan independence means war." [...]
Beijing has long threatened the use of force against Taiwan if it formally declares independence, but rarely so dramatically. The two sides split amid civil war in 1949, and Beijing insists that Taiwan belongs to China and must accept eventual unification.
Today, FoxNews reports the result of this threat: Taiwan's Premier May Overturn Day-Old Referendums Law.
"The referendum law has created a legal basis for Taiwan independence, which the mainland strongly opposes," the newspaper China Daily quoted Liu Guoshen, director of the Taiwan Research Institute at Xiamen University, as saying.The ruling party of President Chen Shui-bian wanted a stronger bill that would have made it easier for the government to call an independence vote. But Taiwan's opposition coalition, which has a slight majority in parliament and favors the island's eventual unification, was against.
This cartoon is from March 2002 and is in our book, Black & White World, which can be purchased at The Intellectual Activist and also at our new sponsor, Quent Cordair Fine Art.
Posted by Forkum at November 28, 2003 08:34 AM
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