Dangerous Straits; Military ties between Washington and Taipei are starting to deepen. It's a shift that has Beijing seeing red.(China reacts to U.S. - Taiwan relations)

Byline: Melinda Liu, With Tim Culpan in Taipei

The Taiwan Strait has long been at the center of a war of words. Beijing and Taipei frequently exchange statements full of vitriol--each accusing the other of bringing them closer to the brink of war. But last week it was Washington that dropped the rhetorical bombshell. Buried deep inside a 54-page Pentagon report on China's military readiness, U.S. defense planners speculated that, in the event of a war across the strait, Taiwan might seek to hit "high-value targets" like the prestigious Three Gorges Dam as a way of deterring a Chinese invasion.

Predictably, such speculation did not sit well with Beijing. If the dam were attacked, warned Chinese Lt. Gen. Liu Yuan in the state-run China Youth Daily, Beijing's retaliation would "blot out the sky." Liu, who is the son of the late Chinese president Liu Shaoqi, slapped down the Pentagon's suggestion that such a threat could ever stop a war over Taiwan. "It will have the exact opposite of the desired effect," said Liu, who for good measure described the United States as "a prostitute pretending to be a gentleman."

Tensions between Beijing, Washington and Taipei are heating up--and the rhetoric is testier than it's been in years. Chinese officials consider Taiwan a renegade province that must ultimately be reunified--by force if necessary--with the mainland. The March re-election of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian came as a great disappointment to Beijing, whose leaders are growing increasingly impatient with Chen's policies, which they see as not-too-subtle attempts to separate Taiwan from the mainland. "Beijing authorities perceive Chen's government as constantly pushing for Taiwan's independence," says Andrew Yang, a security analyst in Taipei. Recently, for example, Chen has been lobbying for an $18.2 billion special budget to buy American weaponry. If Taiwan's Parliament signs off on the deal, it will be the biggest purchase of U.S. arms in a decade--and is guaranteed to further rile Beijing. "I've been visiting China every year for 25 years," says Sinologist David Shambaugh, "and I've never sensed a higher level of anxiety over the Taiwan issue."

Taiwan's leaders often push China's buttons. But it's the backing that Washington is now offering Taipei that has Beijing seeing red. Indeed, the recent Pentagon report was largely a warning to Taipei that "the cross-straits balance of power is steadily shifting in China's favor." The assessment pointedly stated that Taiwan's decadelong decline in defense expenditures is "undoubtedly seen as an encouraging trend in Beijing." Its recommendation: buy more and better American military hardware to help maintain an edge. Last week a high-level Taiwanese delegation headed to Washington to discuss the massive U.S. arms package that President George W. Bush offered in 2001. The purchase is expected to include six Patriot Advanced Capability-3 antimissile systems, eight diesel submarines and 12 P-3C Orion antisubmarine aircraft--more advanced firepower than Taiwan has ever bought from the United States.

Of course, Taiwan's military shopping sprees are themselves not new. More troubling in Beijing's view are the deepening military relations between Washington andTaipei. This year U.S.-led military exercises in the western Pacific are expected to include the Taiwanese military for the first time in three decades. When Brig. Gen. John Allen visits Taiwan this summer, he will be the first active-duty general from the Pentagon to step foot on the island since Washington ended diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979.