How China might get Taiwan
We recently had a conversation with someone who had an interesting spin on China as relates to Taiwan. The logic is all over the place, and parts of it depend on certain religious beliefs the truth of which we are not competent to validate or invalidate, and which may or may not have actually had any policy involvement. Nonetheless, the economic conclusion has a certain logic to it, and so we thought it was worth presenting here.
As everyone who has read The Pentagon’s New Map by Thomas P.M. Barnett knows, there were reasons to have invaded Iraq that, in sum, might have made supporters out of many Americans, and much of the rest of the world, too. However, since these were not the reasons we went, support was not as widespread as it might have been, either domestically or internationally. However, independent of your view in favor or against, there is certainly a consensus that that the war inIraq, like the new Department of Homeland Security, has been and will continue to be very expensive.
The war, and the Department of Homeland Security, according to the theory presented, have been largely funded by borrowing from China, a country of unimaginable wealth: China has cash reserves of roughly a third their GDP, compared to theU.S., which has cash reserves roughly equivalent to what we and you have managed to save. The U.S.will soon be borrowing more to deal with the results of this season’s hurricanes.
Now, some might think that the United States is improvident, but we have been assured by a number of people of strong conviction that the Rapture (from the Latin Rapare, to take away) will soon wipe out all debt, as well as everything else. The Rapture apparently can’t arrive until an apocalyptic event takes place in the Middle East, but if you listen to those who suggest that we should nuke Meccaif there is another tragic faith-based initiative such as we saw on 9/11, only a fool would doubt that something very bad could happen in the Mideast.
The Chinese are apparently unaware of the coming of the Rapture, which means that they are proceeding as if the world is going to go on until it falls into the sun. This being the case, how could they put us in a position where we would not interfere with an occupation of Taiwan? By suddenly stopping purchases of U.S.debt. The estimate we were given is that, were this to happen, unemployment in America would be above fifty percent within three months. The likelihood, according to the theory presented to us, is that our problems would be sufficiently serious that we would not be in a position to interfere with any Chinese actions in Taiwan.
