A record number of Taiwanese believe traditional rival China is friendly towards the self-ruled island and half do not believe closer ties hurt Taiwan's sovereignty, a survey showed Monday.
Nearly 57 percent of the 1,007 people questioned in a China Times poll last week said China was friendly towards Taiwan -- the highest number recorded by the daily.
A total of 15.7 percent considered China hostile while the rest had no comment.
If this poll is to be believed, China is rapidly gaining the ability to take Taiwan by surprise with a bolt from the blue invasion:
The real problem for Taiwan is that Taiwan's belief that China is all warm and fuzzy now will dull their reaction to early signs of being attacked. Remember, gaining the element of surprise doesn't just mean hiding what you are doing from an enemy. It is in large measure manipulating the information so that your enemy believes they see what you want the enemy to see. The Taiwanese government could easily dismiss early ambiguous signals of a coming Chinese attack because the Taiwanese leaders fervently want to believe that their wise policy has ended the Chinese threat, and so reacting with even prudent defensive measures would jeapordize the thawing relations.
The people of Taiwan clearly want to be fooled. In the short run it is comforting.
It is chilling how an entire people can believe soothing words erase the hard realities of the world.
Whoa. We were talking about Taiwan, right?
