My apologies for this delay in replying. K garney, School and other commitments. Great inputs there by Lokman. But if you read carefully, we both are saying the same thing, i.e, America does not want any change in the status quo. I believe that it is only for the short term. America will soon change its policy vis-a-vis Taiwan/China. You seem to imply that, it won't do that. Given the fact that we are just outside observers, we can just guess. Re: Singapore and Australia pressuring America to tread carefully with China, I don't think its the case. I think, these days, Asutralia and Singapore are tilting more towards China. For Australians, its the trade factor. If I may suggest, there was an excellent piece on Sino-Asutralian-Asian relations on this July's New York Times' Magazine. As far as Singapore is concerned, it is true that Singapore was afraid of Chinese communism in the 60's, according to Lee Kuan Yew's Memoir, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story. However, things have changed now. The Chinese majority in Singapore now takes pride in its Chinese heritage, which was rarely the case in the 60s. Its all because of China's impressive growth of the last 30 years. Kishore Muhabani, Singapore's ambassador to the UN is very supportive of China in his book Can Asians Think? Singapore, with its majority Chinese population cannot afford to be on China's bad side, especially when China is leading the Asian economy and there's a surge of Chinese-Nationalism among the ethnic Chinese populations from The Phillippinnes (Sp?) to Malaysia. Taiwan is a very complex problem. Its not just an issue between China-Taiwan, its a major issue between China-Japan-America relations. When you analyze China-America relations, you have to think of the Japan factor. I am quite certain that if Japan does not go ahead with its military program, then things will change in the Asia-Pacific region. Regarding pisces questions, my answer is, things will remain the way they are now for a while. It will start to change when there's no suspicion regarding Japan's military program in China, and Japan starts coopearting with China . As for the tentative date for reunion, I can't say anything. Could be anywehere from 5-50 years. Fisrt, they have to sit down and talk on the terms and conditions, then set a date, like China and the UK did in 1984 regarding the HK handover.