This is a pretty hollow threat. It's more about posturing than action. At this point, most people in the U.S. govt. accept that every once in a while, China has to appeal to nationalism by using Taiwan as a scapegoat, and that they have to sound militant. It's the same thing that Arab leaders do when talking about new developments in the Israel/Palestinian conflict, and nobody in the Executive bats an eye anymore when it happens. There's a working agreement between us and these leaders that it's just something they have to do to maintain their power.

Not sure how many of you are old enough to remember, but 10 years ago when we accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, ChiCom officials were on TV for weeks talking about how it was an "atrocity" and how it was going to ruin U.S.-Chinese relations for good. I recall their President even suggested China might provide military aid to Milosevic in retaliation.

Yeah, right, we all know how that turned out. :rolleyes:

Let's avoid that kind of language, eh? And please, let's also ditch the profanity.

The only good thing that comes out of China is Norinco guns and Chinese food. Let's donate 1 billion, gagillion, fafillion, shabolubalu million, illion, yillion . . . pennies to Taiwan. China can put that in their pipes and smoke it.

Please write that in scientific notation. I'm not sure how big that number really is.