The Prophetic Legacy of the "Hainan Island Incident"

I was teaching adult students English in Taiwan when the "Hainan Island Incident" occurred on April 1, 2001. One would have thought that most people in Taipei would have been firmly on our (the US side), but unfortunately, very few of the northern Taiwanese that I spoke to about the situation back then actually were.

In fact, the Hainan Island Incident was absolutely China's fault, because Wang Wei, the Communist pilot who died was clearly negligent, with a long history of hotdogging and harassing American planes that had merely been flying in international airspace, and the reaction I got from people in Taipei about the whole thing was a huge part of why I eventually left Taiwan to go back home to Missouri in 2002.

So that's why, yeah, it would be swell if the US really could defend Taiwan and keep it from being overrun very, very soon (the way the Beijing government only recently did in Hong Kong), but... I mean, if more Taiwanese honestly believe that their national pride in being ethnically Chinese is more important than siding with the only ally that might be able to help them save their increasingly fragile democracy, then, sadly, you may just be on your own sooner than you think.

After all, I currently live in South Korea, where an estimated 128,650 Americans (33,686 in combat) paid the ultimate price to guarantee freedom and prosperity to the people of just the lower half of this peninsula, and sadly, only the oldest folks here still even appreciate what we sacrificed (in terms of blood AND treasure) for them. And don't even get me started on the high price we also had to pay for the people of Vietnam, who still ended up living under the corrupt, often dysfunctional and backward iron fist of a communist government.