China-Taiwan-Iran Nuke Parts Connection

As I blogged about earlier, the shipment of nuke tech was Chinese in origin, through Taiwan to Iran. AP has the call:

A Taiwanese company agreed to a request from a firm in China to procure sensitive components with nuclear uses, then shipped them to Iran, the firm's head said Friday. Such transactions violate U.N. sanctions imposed on the Middle Eastern nation.

The admission by Steven Lin of Hsinchu-based Heli-Ocean Technology Co. Ltd. comes amid an international effort led by the United States to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. While Lin said he didn't know whether the parts -- a vital component in the production of weapons-grade uranium -- were eventually used by Iran militarily, he did acknowledge that they have nuclear applications.

The Chinese selling nuke tech to Iran through Taiwan? Isn't this an argument for making Taiwan a formal member of international organizations?

Could US Middle Eastern obsessionpolicy be any dumber? Hard to see how. The Bush Administration wrecks the budget and the military on the shoals of Afghanistan and Iraq and tosses away our moral stature on torture and murder in Guantanomo and in the rendition program. The Obama Administration comes in and not much changes. And for what? Iraq is an unmitigated disaster. Afghanistan is merely the act of sending good American boys to die to make Central Asia safe for Chinese expansion. And the Chinese ship nuke parts to Iran, a red flag for the Americans. Surely by now Beijing has grasped that maybe they can get the US to engage in the ultimate folly of attacking Iran, simply by the low-cost policy of keeping that nation's nuke program going. At least they keep the US obsessively focused on Iran.

Analysts in Beijing must laugh themselves to sleep every night at how cataclysmically, world-historically stupid American Middle Eastern policy is.
_____________
Daily Links

• Mutant Frog finds tale of colonial Taiwanese urged by Japanese government to sell gold for war effort.
• Dan Bloom says watch out for Y2k/YCI computer glitch in Taiwan
• WSJ gives a US perspective on the beef issue.
• Hong Kong leader threatens to use PRC troops on demonstrators. DPP should use that in their campaign stuff.
  

_______________________
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!