First, the good points:
"But in the end, this is what matters: Taiwan, like Israel, is a free country loomed over by barbarous, genocidal despots. Like Israel, it needs, and deserves, our support. Kennedy didn’t vow only that we would “oppose any foe,” but also that we would “support any friend . . . to assure the survival and the success of liberty."... Words to live by. He meant friends like Taiwan, like Israel, and — I dare say — like the oppressed people of Cuba."
Thanks, for taking the time to notice the 23 million people of Taiwan, a country triple the population of Israel and double that of Cuba. In fact the nation of Taiwan has a population greater than over half the U.N. member states. And thanks for using the word "unification" to describe China's goal rather than the phony "REunification." But better still would be to use the term, "annexation," as in the "anschluss" of Austria by Hitler's Nazi Germany.
BUT Josh Gelernter and the National Review editors (who should know better) get a lot wrong, and so let us correct your misinformation.
It's "the dictators of China," not "mainland" China. Cuba does not call the U.S. "mainland America." No, Puerto Rico and Hawaii will call the Lower 48, "the mainland." Do you see the difference? Please do not just parrot communist propaganda. You're the National Review, not Time Magazine!
And Taiwan does not claim ownership of communist-subjugated China. The dictatorship did. And one party (run by Chinese exiles and KMT gangsters) in Taiwan does. But the Taiwanese people do not. And as soon as the Chinese Nationalist Party can be ousted from their majority in the legislature, that can be rectified. It is because of America's foolish ambiguity that it has taken so long for the Taiwanese people, without America's help, to throw off the dictatorial regime of the KMT. And it is still doing so, no thanks to the U.S. who supported the KMT in recent elections. Be fair. Without any help from America, it is a slow process to get rid of all the remnant of the ridiculous KMT era of pretend rule over all of China.
"Chiang Kai-shek, who ran Taiwan as a (somewhat benevolent) dictator" you say? How many tens of thousands of people does Chiang Kai-shek's regime have to murder, how much theft of other people's property and freedom does the KMT have to perpetrate before you remove the "somewhat benevolent" label, Mr. Gelernter?
Try reading Formosa Betrayed by George Kerr the next time you get the inward urge to make positive comments (qualified with parentheses or not) about the KMT dictatorship.
