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Will Taiwan vote for independence in a "defensive referendum?"
Taipei Times. Hat tip: VodkaPundit. EFL
President Chen Shui-bian has detailed the arsenal of Chinese missiles targeting Taiwan in his latest move to build a case for a contentious sovereignty vote next year. Chen said late Sunday it was the first time he had specified the location of bases within 600km holding 496 ballistic missiles pointed at Taiwan. The move is likely to inflame already tense relations with Beijing. His latest comments, at an election rally, have already prompted criticism from the opposition camp, which claimed he had leaked military secrets.
Don’t think so. There’s a lot of open-source data from which you could reasonably derive the same assessment.
His speech is seen as part of a plan to rally support for a referendum on unspecified sovereignty issues to run alongside the presidential elections on March 20. Beijing and Chen’s political opponents claimed they had dealt the president a telling blow at a legislative vote last week when they effectively blocked his plans for a series of referendums.
Ahhhh... How well I remember well the heady days of the Great Cultural Revolution™, when thousands, perhaps millions of rabid Chinese would strut their stuff in Olde Beijing. Radio Beijing used to hire its announcerettes based on the snotty quality of their voices, and they'd always announce the lemming swarms as "telling blows against American imperialism." How we used to tremble at the very thought! Running dog lackey anti-socialist agent of reaction that I was, I fell in love with one particularly snotty broadcast maiden. I used to wait for her to come on the air, to bask in her voice, which oozed a peculiar combination of vitriol and raw sex. But then, alas, one day she came no more. A reeducation camp? Some bourgeouis item in the background of her great-grandaddy? Killed and eaten by Red Guards? Who knows? But our love was not to be...
However, Chen has tried to cite a clause in the new law that allows him to stage a ballot on "issues of national security concern" in the event of a foreign threat. Over the weekend, he sought to depict China as a clear and present danger to the nation.
Stephen Green, the VodkaPundit, had this to say about that last ’graf:

Chen isn’t just scaring the bejeebus out of his constituents, but he’s asking them to vote for independence anyway. It’s as if the first line of the Declaration of Independence read, "The Royal Navy lies off our coasts, there are Hessian mercenaries in our streets, and Britain has the power to destroy everything we’ve built here - so c’mon and support independence!"

If Chen gets his referendum, things are going to get awfully tense across the Tawain Straits.

Posted by: Mike 2003-12-02
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=22088