Every summer for the past ten years, China has pointedly rehearsed military drills or missile tests, or both, ready for a possible invasion of Taiwan. Unusually, this month's war games were given advance billing, and their aim was spelled out publicly: to warn Taiwan "separatists" and other "outside forces" that China will not tolerate any effort to split the island away. A similar message was delivered in private last week to the visiting Con-doleezza Rice, President George Bush's national security adviser: China would not sit idly by, said its former president, Jiang Zemin, should Taiwan's leaders continue their drive for independence. China has said this, and more, before. But there is reason to think that America, China and Tai-wan may be in for more turbulent times.
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