Herr Bush raps Taiwan's knuckles

Herr Bush ain't going to give Taiwan F-16's to beef up its defences against a menacing China. He is paying a debt to Beijing who is bankrolling a depleted US treasury, for arranging face saving exits from his disastrous foreign policy cut on axes of evil. He owes Beijing big for a breakthrough with Pyongyang, and for giving Washington a toe in the door to Teheran. Herr Bush won't be the first Republican who wanted to screw US' ally Taiwan. Look at Nixon and Kissinger who wanted to throw Taiwan to Mao's wolf in 1972. Now, he says, whoa there pardnah, there's an us$11bn package on the table for Taiwan, but so there is, but it is a sop without the F-16's, to ward off any mainland adventurism to rape an independent country like it to Tibet 60 years ago.