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Editorial: Meeting threats with candy floss

China has been escalating its anti-Taiwan, anti-Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) rhetoric yet again.

First we had the Taiwan Affairs Office saying on Sunday that it would crush any attempt to seek Taiwan independence "at any cost." After Washington rightly called such remarks unhelpful, it was the turn Thursday of the Foreign Ministry to tell Taiwan not to "gamble on the mainland's tolerance" and to call Chen the "biggest threat" to regional peace.

We might hurt ourselves laughing if the situation was not so grave. Taiwan, a small island with defensive military forces only, whose only wish is to be left alone, is the biggest threat to regional peace?

We are gobsmacked by the audacity. This accusation comes from a power that regularly threatens Taiwan with attack -- and regularly has its military practice mock attacks on Taiwan. The same power gave Pakistan the technology and know-how to build nuclear weapons, has played a murky unclear role in its client state North Korea's nuclear program and has been the supplier of choice to a number of unpleasant regimes' chemical weapons programs.

We are immensely gratified therefore by the US House of Representatives' passage on Thursday of legislation to broaden military contacts with Taiwan. We can only hope that the Senate version of the bill also passes and that the White House has the wisdom to sign the measure into law.

What we particularly like about the bill is its frankness, namely that it seeks "to improve the defenses of Taiwan against attack by the People's Liberation Army." Of course that is exactly what the defense of Taiwan is all about, but it is refreshing to see the likely aggressor named.

The US action is, we understand, a Defense Department-inspired measure brought about by concerns that Taiwan's armed forces have declined in recent years in their ability to fend off an attack by China. It is not just the Defense Department that thinks this; it has become received wisdom overseas while being curiously little talked about here.

Of course it might be that the vastly increased cooperation between Taiwan and the US military that has already occurred during the George W. Bush administration has simply revealed Taiwan's forces to be by no means as good as the Americans had previously thought them to be. But US concerns are also cause for our concern.

Part of the problem is political. Weapons budgets need legislative approval, and the legislature is dominated by parties allied to China who have every interest in ensuring Taiwan's defenses remain weak. Another part is financial; Taiwan is an undertaxed country, the treasury of which has increasingly resembled Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard, as all parties have voted money for electorate-pleasing social programs without paying too much attention to where the money to pay for them should come from. The pan-blues' attempt to lower National Health Insurance contributions, irrespective of the fact that the program was facing imminent bankruptcy, was a typical example of this.

The president's inaugural address was full of good news but lacked substance on real problems. It's all very well to waffle about "23 million warm smiles descended from an ethnic rainbow," but it would have been nice if we had heard something about how the government's financial plight is to be addressed and about a determination to strengthen Taiwan's defenses.

Chen's address was about "paving the way for a sustainable Taiwan," but to be sustainable Taiwan has to be able to defend itself from its enemies, or rather enemy, since really there is only one. If Chen wants to talk about sustainability he has to face the unpleasant fact that Taiwan, like anywhere else, has to make the choice between guns and (more) butter.

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