World events are presenting you with many options. The US is preparing to attack Iraq and still has considerable military and intelligence assets focused on Afghanistan and the war on terror.
North Korea is causing alarm while a new president has been elected in South Korea who seems more worried about US troops than Pyongyang's nuclear weapons.
India and Pakistan still appear close to conflict (and all those nuclear missiles you supplied to Pakistan may soon provide a rich payoff).
The US is busy and distracted with the "Axis of Evil" and the world is full of turmoil.
But, there are negative trends to consider as well. Your economy is filled with inconsistencies: you claim high growth, yet your consumption of energy appears to have declined and you have dangerously large amounts of bad debt.
The US has made serious military inroads to your west, undoing years of steady Chinese diplomacy in Central Asia.
Further, US military-to-military cooperation with Taiwan is increasing, as is the flow of arms to the "rebellious province."
But, you know that a successful military adventure would serve to unite the masses behind the Chinese Communist Party while burying concerns of corruption and economic malaise.
China's military has never been stronger and the US has never appeared weaker in the Pacific. China is a vibrant, growing power and Asia's natural hegemon, while you perceive the US as a declining power, too self-absorbed and accustomed to comfort to be a threat to a powerful and hungry nation such as China.
You think this a time for opportunity, for action, believing that the US could not answer an attack on Taiwan until it was too late. Clearly you are preparing for conflict. Your non-stop war games opposite Taiwan grow ever larger and more elaborate while at the same time making your opponents numb to their vast scale. You have even taken the extraordinary step this month of encouraging Chinese citizens to own gold -- a convertible form of money not easily subject to US economic pressure.
Because the US will be busy and distracted for several months, military action against Taiwan would achieve complete surprise -- no one in Washington, or even Taipei for that matter, expects it. You would enjoy initial success, landing hundreds of thousands of soldiers by sea and air before the US could react. You believe that Washington, presented with the inevitable, a mainland conquest of Taiwan backed up by the threat of nuclear war -- either by proxy through North Korea, or by a direct threat to Los Angeles (again) -- would back down. China would reign supreme in Asia with even Tokyo and Seoul kowtowing to Beijing.
But first, a caution from history: Japan had similar misperceptions about the US in 1941. Imperial Japan's leaders convinced themselves that one strong blow would cause the US to cower and ask for peace, giving Tokyo what Tokyo wanted: a free hand in Asia. As others have done, they mistook the US' love of peace for weakness.
But, what if the US did fight for Taiwan's freedom and democracy? How might that affect your plans for Taiwan?
America's considerable submarine fleet will be mostly available in the coming months, so the US would soon break your blockade of Taiwan while the Chinese fleet would be resting at the bottom of the ocean with scattered remnants confined to port. The US Air Force will be occupied with Iraq for the briefest of times and could soon be refocused on the Western Pacific, severing your air supply link to Taiwan. As your ability to supply your troops on Taiwan diminished, their ranks would melt away. Soon, even the masses in China would know of the disaster and the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) grip on power would evaporate.
Meanwhile, your attempts to use nuclear weapons to intimidate the US, Japan and South Korea would likely fail -- at least in the US, and that's what really counts. If you learned only one thing about the American people after Sept. 11 it should be this: they aren't much impressed by threats from thugs.
The US might pay a terrible price to preserve democracy on Taiwan -- but the price paid by the CCP would be even higher: complete annihilation.
Yes, the US is busy and distracted, but you may want to reconsider.
Chuck DeVore served in the Reagan-era Pentagon as a special assistant for foreign affairs and is the co-author of China Attacks.
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