[diesel00]

Unless Taiwan can build more nukes than China (and be able to land them in China), I really don't think a nuclear Taiwan would be any more of a deterrent than a non-nuclear Taiwan. A nuclear test by Taiwan could very well be perceived as a declaration of war to the Chinese. It's utterly foolhardy and serves no purpose.

Having all of East Asia nuclearize is NOT in the best interests of the United States believe it or not. Rice and the Bush administration are well aware of this. The end result of a nuclearized East Asia is that US forces leave the region, it would do jack squat in containing China.

Japan isn't gonna nuclearize, even if it had nukes, it wouldn't test them.

[AmericanExceptionalist]

A nuclear test by Taiwan could very well be perceived as a declaration of war to the Chinese.

Yet the South Koreans apparently don't consider North Korea's nuclear detonations "a declaration of war"--not to mention the gazillions of conventional arms aimed at Seoul.

Some people might think the totalitarians are just more serious about this deadly game than the West is.

[Constantine XI Palaeologus]

Umm...If nukes weren't a deterrent, why would NK, Iran (okay, Iran might actually want to use them), and a slew of tin pot dictatorships want to procure them, even in small amounts? You're right that Red China would think of that as a declaration of war, but it definitely serves a purpose. The Chicoms are pretty fervent about taking Taiwan, but having the possibility of a radioactive Beijing, Shanghai, or any big city is certainly going to influence whether they try and take the island by force.

[Left2Right]

A nuclear armed Japan & Taiwan would go along way to deterring China. Nor would the US forces leave the region if East Asia was "nuclearized", which is a completely ridiculous and uneducated assumption. US forces did not leave Western Europe when Russia and Eastern Europe were "nuclearized". What ended the cold war was a decision by the U.S. & Western Europe to go for mass "nuclearization", thanks to the leadership of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

A nuclear armed Japan & Taiwan would expose China for the true Paper Tiger it really is. It would be the best thing to happen to the region in 50 years.