New Novel by Lobbyist looks at US/China war over Taiwan

Wulingren, posting at Taiwan Matters!, pointed to this review of a new novel about a US-China clash over Taiwan.

That's what you get in The Mandarin Club, a post-Cold War novel of espionage, diplomacy, politics, lobbying and what-if.

What if the long-simmering dispute between the Chinese Communist government and Taiwan - the one determined to end Taiwan's independence, the other determined to defend it - metastasized into a crisis?

What if Taiwan were reported to be developing a clandestine nuclear capability against Chinese attack?

What if military hard-liners in the Chinese Communist government were deploying missiles in Fujian province, 60 miles from Taiwan across the Taiwan Strait?

What would the United States do? What could it do, its military still bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, its economy in hock to China?

"America will fall like the Roman Empire some day, in an ocean of debt, one big Disneyland in ruins, infested with stray cats like the Colosseum," a Chinese Defense Ministry official declares.

The author of the book, Gerald Felix Warburg, ran a consulting/lobbying firm that has longtime links to both Taiwan and China. During the 1990s his people worked for the Lee Teng-hui KMT. They later rose to positions in the Bush Administration, but the money flows caused a ruckus in Taiwan.

[Taiwan] [China] [US]