December 26, 2002

 While China continues to exercise diplomatic pressure to disarm Taiwan, it also keeps expanding economic ties between Taiwan and China. It's now legal for Taiwanese to own real estate in China and Taiwanese investors continue to put money into mainland businesses. China is also enacting laws giving more protections to foreign investments. While China officially talks about reforming its armed forces, it's not spending the money, or effort, to make any substantial progress. New weapons purchases are largely public relations exercises, as the number of warplanes or warships are far to small to make a difference in a future war.