LOS ANGELES — Unless they somehow manage to entwine us in World War III with China, our friends in Taiwan truly are our friends.
Over and over again, Beijing has let the world know that any dramatic move by the offshore island toward permanent and formal independence would trigger war. To back this threat up, the good people of the People's Liberation Army have tilted more than a thousand mainland missiles in Taiwan's direction.
This is serious business. Last year the prestigious and nonpartisan RAND Corporation of Santa Monica, Calif., concluded that the military balance over the Taiwan Strait had overwhelmingly tipped westward toward the mainland and that a full-scale attack from China would be very difficult to repel.