Beijing is too busy to invade Taiwan—until 2008 at least
■"Beijing's Quest for 2008: To Become Simply Livable; Toilets to Traffic, a Torrent of Complaints," by Jim Yardley, New York Times, 28 August 2005, p. A4.
The big push for the Olympics in China is going well from a logistics standpoint: construction is well on pace.
But from a showcase standpoint, Beijing has miles to go. All this massive reformatting of the ancient city is triggering big debate and big efforts at defining not just what it takes to pull off the Olympics, but how to look (and feel) good doing it. The concept is called "a City suitable for living." As one senior government planner puts it, "We've never thought about this before."
Why?
China's had the luxury of such thoughts for about half a millennium, having lost out big time for centuries after withdrawing from the world. Like the Middle East, China had a golden age and then saw it all slip away. But unlike Islam, China's made the comeback on something other than raw materials. So China has grown and developed and the 2008 Olympics will be its coming out party.
So Taiwan is most definitely safe for another three years, and after that China will be too busy counting its medals and accepting kudos for being a world-class power to bother with absorbing militarily a country, which—by then—will be well within its economic grasp.
The real invasion is well underway, and Groton won't be America's answer.