Pisces, nice points. Here's me again with my views. 1. America wants a strong China. Any instability in China will greatly affect the whole world. American policy since 1972 has been to avoid any action that would affect the terrirtorial integrity and stability of China. This is why the CIA stopped its Tibet operations. According to David Sambaugh of GW University, a fairly reputed China scholar in the US when it comes to contemporary issues, " For the United States, it is also important that China remain united and effectively governed.S imilarly, as China's terretorial and national security is vital to Asian security and stability, it is also central to US national interests. A China that is secure from foreign threat or coercion, can adequately defend itself, and can protect its legitimate soverignty is good for both Asian and American interests. So, the US national interests lie in a secure China, not a weak one. A united China, not a divided one. 2. Why Does the US support Taiwan? This is a very difficult question to answer. Let me try, I might be totally wrong, and if any of you correct me or pinpoint the errors in my answer, I would highly appreciate that. The US has Taiwan-Relations act, so it has to make sure that "Taiwan maintains adequate defense." This is why the US is selling arms, despite the joint-China-US communique of 1992 on arms sales to Taiwan. Taiwan is a very sensetive issue for the US, because it cannot just drop its once-important ally, nor it can openly antagonize China. During the cold war, and during the early 90's, the US was trying to balance its relations with China and Taiwan. With China's rising economy, its growing defense capability and recently with N Korean issue, the China side greatly outweighs the Taiwan side. The US is more tilting towards China. Its impossible for any country to change its position overnight, so the US is slowly changing its policy on Taiwan. The recent referrendum in Taiwan was not supported by the US. And Taiwan without a strong US backing will never declare independence or go to war with mainland. And the US support for either independence or war with mainland is not in the coming. The US will try to keep things as it is now, and at the same time, look for peaceful ways to resolve this issue. It will in no event support Taiwan's independence or militarily support Taiwan if there is a war between China and Taiwan. China-Taiwan war will not only affect China-Taiwan but the whole of East and South-East Asia, and even America and Europe. And as I wrote earlier, a strong China is desired by the US so that the strategic partnership forged during the Nixon-Mao years still remains, and it can effectively deal with the North Korean, Central Asian Republics issues. Also, Taiwan-China is less of a concern in the US academia/strategic studies circle these days. Now-a-days, people are more concerned about China-Japan relations. The historical tensions etc aside, in 20 years time, it will be the first time in the history of Asia that China and Japan will be equally powerful. This is why Japan is tring to recreate its Army, and the Chinese have enough legitimate reasons to show their concerns regarding this recent Japanese tilt towards militarism. And not only China, Korea too has enough reasons to show its concerns towards Japanese bid to recreate its army. If the Japanese succeed in ammending their constitution, then believe me, the threat to Asian and American national interests wouldn't come from China-Taiwan or even North Korea, it will come from Japan. And this was clearly highlighted [not Japan becoming a threat to Asia though, that's my own interpretation. He said something along the line that: If Japan and China are equally powerful economic and defense wise, then that would create a problem. I believe that he was hinting the possible course of Japanese actions based on Japan's not-so-distant history] in a lecture given by a Prof. of SAIS of JHU, which was published in one of this year's issues of Foreign Affairs. Also, there is the issue of Central Asian Republics with nukes from the former Soviet Empire. They are more prone to poverty and power wars due to resources and other issues. They need to be checked-and-balanced and the only way for the US to do this is by not antagonizing China. Eyefusion, you were right. As a student of Chinese affairs, I tend to share my views on China, whenever I can. K garney, its the only thing I have some vague ideas of..