No time for anything else today due to work (boo) and still not being 100%, but I found another marvellously over-the-top letter in today’s South China Morning Post and I can’t resist:
Taiwan freedom
I note readers and columnists demanding greater freedoms and more democracy in Hong Kong while staying curiously silent on the same freedoms in Taiwan.
Once again, the mainland is rattling its sabre towards tiny Taiwan in the hope of dissuading its voters from exercising their hard-won freedom to choose their leaders. China views the island as a breakaway region, and would love to reunite it, by force if necessary – but what has democratic Taiwan done to deserve this?
If the mainland invaded, it would triumph after a brief and bloody battle. A conquering army not welcomed by locals, the PLA would show no mercy, going on a rampage of murder and looting. What would be left of Taiwan? Families torn apart, democratic institutions dismantled, leaders imprisoned, executed or forcibly co-opted and orphanages filled with rape-babies. All because Taiwan dares to dream of freedom.
Why not leave them alone? Is the smell of freedom so close to the mainland too much for the Communist Party to bear? So I ask in this time of threats and bullying, what can China actually give Taiwan?
CRAIG CURRIE-ROBSON, Tuen Mun
If the mainland invades. But they’re not going to, are they?
Ordinary Gweilo 
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