Listen: Behind This Week’s Column:
With all we see on our TV screens these days—union protests in Wisconsin, upheaval in the Middle East, the devastating earthquake in Japan—it’s no wonder that only die-hard China hands are paying close attention to the evolving status quo in the ongoing Chinese Civil War.
Which civil war is that? It’s the one that began in the 1920s between the Chinese Communists and Nationalists and was never settled by an armistice, peace treaty or surrender. It’s the one that resulted in three major Taiwan Strait Crises (1954-55, 1958, and 1995-96). It’s the one in which, today, China arrays 1500 short- and medium-rang ballistic missiles and its armed forces along the Taiwan Strait aimed at Taiwan, even as China and Taiwan enjoy an unprecedented level of cross-strait interaction. And it’s the one many U.S. policy makers wish would just go away. (More)
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