China angry over Taiwan talks of independence.

It has been instructive to watch the hostile attitudes of totalitarian nations towards free nations over the past decades. The most virulent socialist hatred is seen when communist and free nations are almost brothers: North and South Korea, East and West Germany, North and South Vietnam, China and Taiwan.

China is almost psychotic about Taiwan, and will see nothing less than its reabsorption into the communist whole. The idea of this little island's independence seems to be like fingernails on a blackboard to the Red Chinese. As much as I've looked at this, I'm still not completely sure why. Is it the realization that an independent Taiwan will be a better and stronger nation than the many-times-larger China, rubbing the world's nose yet again in the failures of communism? Is it a simple territorial obsession, the sort of thing that sent Britain to war over the Falklands? Is there something else?

Should this all hit the fan someday, I hope we have an adminstration in place with the guts to come down on the right side of this.