The Sino-French Connection

Hopefully, this will become a major story soon. According to Reuters:

"BEIJING (Reuters) - China and France will hold rare joint naval exercises off the mainland's eastern coast on Tuesday, just four days before Beijing's rival, Taiwan, holds presidential elections.

China's official Xinhua news agency made no link between the exercises off Qingdao -- about 780 miles from Taiwan's northernmost point -- and the election.

But the show of military strength and solidarity signaled China's desire to isolate the self-governing island before the vote and its first-ever referendum, which Beijing views as a provocative step toward independence. "

This leaves me shocked to say the least and I have pretty low standards for the French government as it is.

Apparently, this is an effort to intimidate the Taiwanese elections by showing that China is not isolated. But there's more to it then that. This is the navy of a democratic world power sailing side by side with Beijing's Communist Regime, to effectively change the tide of democratic independence movements in Taiwan. This is despicable. What happened to democratic solidarity, France?

Then again, maybe the French just didn't realize there were elections coming up...

Or maybe the French want to teach the Chinese how to sink some of those menacing Greenpeace ships.