Fighting words

When looking at a totalitarian system, sometimes it's hard to distinguish between the opinion of one individual and the official policy of an entire state. Nevertheless, this is a bit frightening.

"If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition onto the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons," Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu said in yesterday's editions of the Financial Times and the Asian Wall Street Journal.

I've never been one of those China worrywarts like some other right-of-center guys I know, but the use of nuclear weapons is nothing to be joked about. It's understandable that China would, like any other nuclear state, uphold a policy of retaliation in the event of a first strike against them. However, this does not seem to be the case judging from the following:

The statements contradict China's publicly stated policy that it will not be the first nation to use nuclear weapons in a conflict. Gen. Zhu was quoted as saying he believed the no-first-use policy applied only to nonnuclear states and could be changed.

He said Beijing is under internal pressure to change the no-first-use policy and to announce that it will use the most powerful weapons at its disposal to defend its claim on Taiwan. He stated that "war logic" requires weaker powers to use all means to defeat a stronger rival.

Yes, of course, "war logic" would clearly suggest that China's best option at this point would be to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States, thereby eliminating all threat to a negligible island in the South China Sea.

Yikes.