WORLD NEWS: "Taiwan Revisits Links With China as Exports Slide," by Ting-I Tsai and Ian Johnson, Wall Street Journal, 10 March 2009.

The best rejoinder to predictions, such as my own, that Taiwan will eventually seek economic union with China.

Recently, Taiwan's exports to China have fallen far more than its exports to both America and Japan, thus the popular questioning of Ma's strategy of seeking a free-trade agreement with China.

But note that the big drawback here is not political, but economic--the question of whether or not such a rapprochement truly pays off.

And yet, looking forward, where else can Taiwan turn? It's a truly entrepreneurial society with a fairly developed domestic market, so growth must come through globalization and China's orbit will be hard to escape.

But no mention of military matters in the article, and that tells you plenty.