Paul Lin’s warmongering
Paul Lin’s (林保華) article has a lot of rhetoric, but little substance (“Window of opportunity for invasion is opening,” Aug. 3, page 8).
First, he says subjective things about Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), calling him an “arrogant adventurist,” as just one example, but gives no objective facts to support these assertions.
Second, yes, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has a focus on Taiwan, but this has been the case for more than 35 years and they still have not attacked Taiwan.
Third, Lin says Taiwan is experiencing domestic chaos and that the pension reformers support China. The two statements are untrue, have no factual basis and are slanderous and irresponsible.
Fourth, Lin claims that the pro-Taiwan people around US President Donald Trump have been weakened.
Again, Lin provides no facts to support this claim.
Lastly, yes, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) was not mentioned in the recent G20 summit, but the US still surrounds China with military bases.
To the west, China shares a relatively small border with Afghanistan where the US has a base. To the south, China sees US bases in the Philippines and Australia. To the east, China sees US bases in Japan and South Korea, and in April construction began of another US base in Japan. Only to China’s north is there are no US military bases.
In other words, China is contained. The US is not appeasing China.
Former US president Barack Obama sold Taiwan Apache gunship attack helicopters and Blackhawk helicopters. This is not appeasing China.
Obama put more than 1,000 US Marines in Australia. The number of US Marines in Australia will increase to 2,500. This is not appeasing China.
China spends between US$100 billion and US$200 billion on its military. The US spends between US$500 billion and US$600 billion on its military.
To those who warn that China will invade Taiwan, my question is: When will China invade Taiwan? Today? Next week? Tonight right after dinner?
The hawks say that Taiwan and the US must do something about China’s military bases in the South China Sea.
The hawks do not say that if Taiwan or the US attacks these bases or China first, China might retaliate with nuclear weapons against Taiwan, causing a holocaust at best or a genocide of 25 million people at worst.
Yet at a conference earlier this year at the Academia Sinica, Lin suggested that the US attack China first. Lin even suggested that the US could bomb China without sending in troops.
Lin consistently makes pro-war statements that are irresponsible.
Has Lin ever even been in combat? If he has not, then he is someone with no experience in combat who finds it very easy to talk about combat.
This is the same perspective of former US secretary of state Robert McNamara, who was never in combat and one of the architects of the war between Vietnam and the US.
This is the same perspective of former US president George W. Bush, who was never in combat and one of the architects of the war between Iraq and the US.
This is the same perspective of former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton who was never in combat and bombed Libya and removed the democratically elected leader of Honduras.
This is the same perspective of US President Donald Trump who was never been in combat and bombed Syria while eating chocolate cake with Xi.
Andres Chang
Taipei
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