What's a Strategic Objective between Friends?

Power is in expression without exertion. All the high talk of lineage and nationality couldn't cloak China's desire to swallow up Taiwan, especially with the growing thicket of ballistic missiles threatening to skewer the strait-excused island country. For all its physical might, China is sufficiently weaker than the United States and American allies to be prevented from enveloping its neighbor — and in frustration Beijing prefers all parties simply accept the proposed sequestration and not talk about the decline in possibility running inversely to, oddly enough, the number of silos on the eastern Chinese coast.

A third party has joined Taiwan and America, and if their Beijing-perceived meddling weren't enough, the interlopers have the gall to play it cool:

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said that Japan was not stepping up pressure on China.

"Japan's basic policy has not changed," Koizumi said, stressing that Tokyo wanted a peaceful solution in the Taiwan Strait.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda, the top Japanese government spokesman, said last month's joint US-Japan statement came because it is "important to have a deeper recognition" over the key strategic area.

"We believe there is no particular problem as our country's policy toward Taiwan has not changed at all," Hosoda told reporters.


Nothing special, see? Tokyo just wouldn't want anything happen to Taipei, that's all, and will make especially certain with its broadening navy.

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