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TAIWAN has declared for independence in the format of the election of a new President. The president elect, Chen Shui-bin was an independence candidate, to the more liberal side of the Nationalists, which is quite a surprising turn. Liberal ? liberality of spirit which seeks liberty! China had been relying on threats of force - no doubt amplified in awe for the hearer,  by its alleged thefts of rocket and atomic plans from the USA - to subdue the unconquered island, and this did not have the desired effect. It is indeed altogether possible that it was specifically COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE, to an uncowed people.

It is like having Hitler off the British coast in France, IN THE ATOMIC AGE. However of course there are winds, and any atomic violence on Taiwan could blow to the mainland. Further, any violence at all against Taiwan might lead that nation to consider its Hiroshima style options against the aggressor. That too is complicated by winds, though distant and vulnerable parts of China are far further from Taiwan, than is Taiwan from the nearer parts of China. In other words, the cost to China could be greater from drift; and that to Taiwan, much less.

Nevertheless, it is a perilous ... game, if one can call it a game which involves a massive power which by arrogant usurpation took over China, wanting (rather like Moslem nations wanting more of tiny Israel) to get... the rest. NOT AN ISLAND thank you, must ESCAPE the moloch of Communism!

The USA was mighty in defence in the 50's for Taiwan; and more recently had an aircraft carrier in the straits separating Taiwan from China. The possible enhancement of Chinese aggressive power, through courtesy of slack security and ardent desire, the latter on the part of the US and the former on the part of China, may become a feature of change. However the power of Taiwan itself is simple: if it COULD remove the capital of China, for example (presumably after due warning, morally), to indicate that it prefers China not to invade; and if China should be aware of this possible outcome, then of course the question of the price of the goose arises. Is any goose worth that ? Does Taiwan have that power ? it would seem indeed strange if they did not. Israel quietly acquired just such a power by intense and intricate labours over a long period, and it may be that this other tiny enclave of independence has done the same. This possible option for Taiwan may affect China.

The US, meanwhile, before the election, appeared to be issuing double-tongued remarks, which to its rulers may have seemed the very epitome of diplomacy; but it is one directed wholly differently from that of the days of President Truman. Not to put human rights above the other sections of relationship with China appears Clinton's aim, if one can understand his words. It is assuredly the DEED index, for loss of the most favoured nation treatment does not seem to be looming, while the rough-handed treatment of some of China's intellectual cream, as if curdling did not matter, has no sign of cessation! In fact, the USA message appeared twofold, verbally:

• 1) threats of violence on the part of China towards Taiwan are scarcely likely to be productive (cool it, China!
• 2) It would not seem appropriate for Taiwan to be seeking independence (forget it, Taiwan!).

Thus in the apparent interplay of some sort of brokership, the US message to Taiwan in fact seemed to counsel political capitulation; and to China, to let it happen nicely. Go to the gallows with dignity, and accept doom with pleasantness. Is it not enough that your victim dies ? Must it die in indignity! What a quaint message from the land which could not bear England to be so difficult, to an Asiatic land which would suffer incomparably more and worse, than what is now the USA ever did, or was likely to do in the then foreseeable future, in the days of the wars of Independence. Is 1776 forgotten ? Was it not a little thing compared with this Communist lust for body and soul and mind and management of all, in godless arrogance and eventual impotence, as China awaits either deliverance or its own doom, which nothing of the prodigious industrialisation made possible by apparent blindness on the part of wealthier nations, will enable it to escape!

ALL NATIONS are going to come to the point of direct confrontation with God, whether the USA or China or any other which disdains His word - whether in form, as in China, or in fact as in much of the USA. One has only to read Joel 3:14ff. to see that there will be "multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! {where the decisive outcome will be reaped} For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. The sun and moon will grow dark, and the stars will diminish their brightness, the Lord also will roar from Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem... The LORD will be a shelter for His people..."

Yet perhaps you say, But that is far from China ? Nothing is so far any more, on this earth, and indeed in Revelation 16 we learn 3 decisive facts concerning this matter.

1) The "kings of the East" are to join in the unholy mêlée in the Middle East (Rev. 16:12), in their time
2) The "kings of the earth" are to be gathered to Armageddon (Rev. 16:14), and
3) The purpose will be aggressive defiance of the LORD (Rev. 19:19).

Before the end, moreover, there will be an international régime which of course will not exclude China, and it is based in Europe (cf. Revelation 13:14-18, SMR pp. 902ff., 918ff., 955ff.). Many nations would like, it seems, to be free from the word of God; the Communists of its judgments on their alienated heads (Romans 1), the Asiatics from the European and coming hegemony of evil (and who would not!), and steps to that end would scarcely surprise. However they will not prevail, nor will anything else contrary to the word of God, which thunders on like an express train, and is never derailed. In the short term, however, the confrontationism on the straits of Taiwan continues, and one applauds the courage of the Taiwanese in the face of this atrocity of provocation.

As with Hitler, so now with the US, there is appeasement. It never works. Feed a bully and he gets beefier is the short-term rule. Hitler got very round of paunch, politically speaking. It does no good to bully or bulge, and the people suffer, do they not ? Ask Europe for example. To serve Taiwan up to the cheerless, heedless and heartless ministrations of the comic reductionism of atheism (SMR pp. 976ff.), the dead blindness of materialism (SMR pp. 262-264, 269; 79-81, 112-113, 212, 227, 255) and the lustreless face of Communistic quasi- humanism makes mockery of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. If animals should fare better, what of man ? Does he not matter ? is he to be discarded while animals are regarded. THIS, it is not to disregard animals; but IT IS to focus man!

In fact, Communism (SMR pp. 925-926), the aristocratic shoe on the Chinese governmental foot (let us be practical),  is wholly inhumane, starting with neither God nor man and ending with unrestricted dictatorship of totalitarian system managers, who do not even know how to make the system man uses, let alone the power he employs in directing his own system, or the validity with which to assert anything - (That Magnificent Rock Ch.5, SMR Ch.3). It is no accident, but a systematic result of its irrationalistic philosophy, that Chinese Communism afflicts its people with internationally notorious violations of 'human rights'.

Just as man disregarded man when the nation of Israel came to its judgment in the days of Amos and those forwards (Amos 6:1-8, 4:1-13 cf. Isaiah 58, Jeremiah 7), so now is this disregard of human spirit. It is done with an unprincipled idolatry of flesh that gives unlimited, unreasoned and unsavoury powers to mere man, the property of his Designer, with calloused hand, made hard from the heart, sight  dim, thoughts drugged with the opiate of philosophy, minds that are closed and corrupted by irrationality, because without God. It is to this system, which is the fatal opium of China, that Taiwan is then to be consigned ? if it could be ?

But what of man ? Is not his soul above any political system, the mere invention of minds that run where they will! And what of God ? Is He to be mocked by indifference to Himself and His creation ? "Prepare," He said to the paralleling Jews, "prepare to meet your God!" (Amos 4:12). It is HE who declares HIS THOUGHT to man.

It is not war but the spiritual worship of God  that is needed; not satellites but spirit; not money but morality; not phrases but concern, not limousines of diplomacy but heart. Abandonment by the abandoned is no great mystery; but let everyone examine him/herself! To abandon God is to abandon your Maker, your meaning and your mission. To live for means is mean and dispirited, like a driver who always fills with the best petrol for the best and tuned engine, but fails either to consult a map, or to believe there is one.

Taiwan's plight internationally is symptomatic. Imagine forsaking the remnant of a purge and rape of a land by atheistic totalitarianism, which relies not a little on the hands of what it bites, and recognising China but not Taiwan in sport or in diplomacy! Why ? Is it money ? Is it 'prosperity' ? Is it fear ? Recognise what ? What is unrecognisable ? and abandon what ? what may be made so, physically!

Taiwan is a symptom of the spirit of man at this time. It is however the disease itself  which needs treatment. It is time to seek the Lord, and finding Him, for the wicked to forsake His way and His thoughts (Isaiah 55), and to look to the one whose truth brings peace (Isaiah 52:7, Ephesians 2:17-23), and whose proclamation brings pardon, whose power brings love and whose Son brings grace.
 

It is time to be strong in Him (Ephesians 6:10ff.), fearless and faithful not merely in political things, but in all things. It is not a question of this: How are you going ? It is rather this: Have you come ? not to some Christ of the concoction of men, whose inventive impudence can look at no limit, but to the LORD'S CHRIST (Luke 2:36), sent on time into time to do the work for all time, to cover the sins of time in timely fashion, while it is still day (I Peter 2:22ff., Isaiah 53, John 6:37, Ephesians 1:10, Galatians 1; 3; 5).