Via the History News Network: Rhodes College professor John Copper has a column for the conservative foreign-policy magazine The National Interest called "Why We Need Taiwan." Copper, the Stanley J. Buckman Professor of International Studies at Rhodes and author of dozens of books on China and Taiwan, argues that Taiwan is strategically important to the United States in its role of containing China's ambitions. He uses the analogy of the U.S. victory over the Native Americans at Wounded Knee: With its internal territory consolidated, the U.S. was able to focus outward and become a global power within decades. Likewise, he says:
China's reunification of Taiwan will be its Wounded Knee. It will no longer need to focus on territorial matters and will doubtless look to realize power ambitions further from its shores.
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