What? I can't believe that this question was asked in seriousness.
Edit: I've given a lot of thought to the notion of war between the US and China. I think it has a non-trivial possibility of occurring. But not in the near future, and not over such an insignificant event. My conclusions are that, should such a war occur, it would be sparked by the Chinese mainland taking Taiwan by force very quickly and that it wouldn't happen until China felt it was on a near level with the US economically (something that is still quite far away).
I just feel like the US news has taken a really anti-Chinese turn over the past year or two. I suspect that it has to do with the poor American economic situation and a desire for a common enemy.
A shooting war will never happen between the US and China. Both countries have nuclear weapons. Almost as bad, both countries have the ability to unilaterally bankrupt the other--China through fire-selling their stash of US dollars and the US through cutting off imports from China. The problem is that either step on its own would be mutually disastrous. If China floods the market with cheap US dollars, the RMB (which is pegged to the USD) crashes too. If the US cuts off Chinese imports, our cost of living soars even before taking into account the hyperinflation China could cause for us.
Taiwan and China will reunify, but they will reunify peaceably. It will follow largely the example of Hong Kong.
I don't see the reunification happening in the next few decades. Taiwan is a democracy these days, and the public mood there is very strongly against reunification. Unlike with Hong Kong there is no third party in charge that the negotiation can happen with.
If the Taiwanese are so against unification, why do they keep voting for the Kuomintang--which is the party that has been negotiating with the Communists for reunification?
Taiwan can remain a democracy under the PRC. The real question is whether the rest of China will become democratic as well. I imagine that's the real reason the KMT wants reunification--not so the communists can have power over Taiwan, but so the KMT can have power over the mainland.
Nothing is quite so cut and dry as all that. The KMT is willing to negotiate for reunification, but on such terms that it is pretty surely not going to happen.
This is a fit with Taiwanese attitudes as revealed in polls. Which is overwhelmingly to maintain the status quo. However if forced to pick between independence and reunification, independence is preferred by something like a 2 to 1 margin. But Taiwan is painfully aware of what a declaration of the risks that a declaration of independence would bring, hence the desire to maintain the current status of having independence in substance only.
Incidentally your comment about Taiwan remaining a democracy under PRC looks like a nod to Taiwan remainING a democracy under PRC control with an arrangement similar to Hong Kong and Macau. If so then you should note that in a 2005 poll nearly 80% of the country is opposed to that idea.
Nothing a good 50-100 years of mainland reforms won't fix, though. Ancient civilizations can and do think and plan in the long term.
In principle, it's already agreed that there is but one China. It's also understood that any military action by the mainland towards Taiwan will result in some number of American aircraft carriers showing up. The rest is a matter of time.
I would imagine a Cold War is by definition NOT a shooting war. But where does one draw the distinction between "cold war" and "healthy international competition"?
My opinion is that there's no such thing as an international healthy competition, not at this scale (with the Internet).
Competition is where the players have equal opportunities to win, being it (0.5 + 0.5) vs 1 (small players versus big players). Here it's not the case since different actions can take place (WW3, nuclear war, ...).
honestly I don't think the nukes are as huge deterrent as they once were.
I just don't believe that in the last 20 years, noone invented anything that can take out a nuke in mid-flight, especially with all the trillions that went into the DoD in those years.
I mean just look at how far wireless technology has moved in the past 20 years. At this point they can probably hack a nuke out of the sky over a wifi connection.
We might be able to take out a couple of nukes. An entire barrage from a nuclear superpower will get through.
Also, ballistic missiles have no means of communication with the outside world. No guidance, even. They're "ballistic"--you put them up and physics determines where they come down.
>Also, ballistic missiles have no means of communication with the outside world
I thought there were old research about objects during reentry communicating through the plasma? (I think I saw articles from the 1990s(?) on putting metal into the plasma and making it transparent at some wavelengths?)
You get Google hits for variants of: communicating through reentry plasma
How trustworthy Scientific American is these days is debatable, but this was a recent article.
Is it really an insignificant event, though? A foreign government staging cyber attacks on human rights activists and corporations?
I've done a lot of reporting on China over the past year, and yes, and lot of it's been negative coverage having to do with censorship and this Google debacle. When China gives me something awesome to write about, I'll cover that fairly, as well.
For example, Richard MacManus is going to be having a conversation with Ai Weiwei (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Weiwei) in a couple weeks, and I know there will be some positive news from that.
I'm not sure if the media coverage was as negative, but it may be worthwhile comparing the China fascination with that of the Japan fascination of the late 80s.
When it looked like Japan would overtake the US's superpower position it was understandable US media took a particular interest in all things Japanese.
And if you're looking at a potential superior, it think it's equally predictable to look at that possible negative consequences of such a relationship change.
A similarity may also be seen regarding the occasional anti-Americanism in poplar media (that is, not in the political arena) in Europe, particularly in France and Britain (albeit drastically reduced now Obama is president).
Both countries, like all countries I suspect, would like to be the sole superpower, and when an occasion occurs to poke fun at, or seriously criticise, justifiably or not, the actual superpower then it will of course be readily taken up.
This is not specific to either European countries or the US, but I would argue at any power-relationship: with those at the lower rungs vying to take their place at the top, and voicing their arguments against the one at the top at any time possible.
Arguably China isn't the sole or a superpower as yet, but it seems to be a worry for the US (as it was regarding Japan in the 80s) and it seems to be a goal of China, aiming to regain 'honour' after the British opium wars and the Japanese invasion, among other events, which seem to have caused the Chinese to feel such shame.
Yeah, and if we were the Chinese, we could even afford to pay for them :) This time around we'd be playing the role of the Soviet Union, and we'd probably be the ones who end up broken and bankrupt. Maybe... maybe they'll at least let us keep some of the toys?
Looks like it was IE6 exploits : "the code [...] exploited a security loophole in IE6".
And title is very misleading. A hacker was found who wrote some code used by the Hackers "He didn't launch the attacks himself, and the U.S. cybersecurity team that tracked him down said that he didn't want his work to be used for attacks of this nature and magnitude."
Cool! Moon rockets, faster computers, government funding for weird projects... Fun toys come out of cold wars ;-)