On June 28, 1914, a Serb student in Sarajevo assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. His murder was the pretext used by the Austro-Hungarian Empire to expand its influence in the Balkans relying on German support. This and other reasons set in train a series of events that eventually led to the outbreak of World War I.

In 1931 the League of Nations failed to end the second Sino-Japanese war. Two years later in 1933 Adolph Hitler came to power in Germany and rebuilt the German armed forces. The Nazis who were in power in Germany and Italy’s Fascists began an expansionist policy that led to the German occupation of Poland. France and Britain intervened and World War II broke out in 1939.

Suppose China takes over Taiwan that Beijing considers a breakaway island. Would it trigger World War III plunging the whole world into nuclear confrontation?

The answer to such a question would be extremely difficult given the highly complicated situation in the South China Seas. There are also the complications resulting from North Korean’s nuclear capabilities.

Until the beginning of World War II, Taiwan remained under Japanese occupation under an agreement that obliged China to relinquish the island to Japan in 1895. China abolished the agreement in 1941 when Japan entered World War II.

Although Japan did not recognize the Chinese action, it nevertheless was forced to give up the island under the San Francesco Agreement that followed the end of the war. The agreement did not specify to whom the island would belong, thus leaving the international status of the island unsettled. This in turn led China to regain control over Taiwan in 1950. The United States intervened and President Harry Truman declared Taiwan a neutral entity and ordered the American 7th Fleet to protect the island.

What happened in 1959 could not be repeated now, although the US has turned the island into a huge military base stationing on it its most advanced weapons.

A Chinese general recently warned that his country was prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US if Washington attacked China during a confrontation over Taiwan.

Gen. Zhu Chenghu was quoted by the Financial Times and the Asian Wall Street Journal as saying that if the Americans directed their missiles and position-guided ammunition at Chinese territory, China will have to respond with nuclear weapons. The Chinese, he said, would prepare themselves for the possibility of seeing hundreds of their cities being destroyed and that Americans in return must also be ready for the destruction of hundreds of their cities.

The general said his statements reflected his personal view and not that of the Chinese government. But at the same time the Chinese Ministry of Defense declined to comment on the statement while the Chinese Foreign Ministry said it was investigating.

The threat of use of nuclear weapons against America was the clearest and most dangerous warning ever issued by a high-ranking Chinese official in ten years.

The question here is whether the US is indeed ready to enter into war with China if the later occupied Taiwan by force. This is a question that never ceases to be debated by the political observers.

However, I don’t think the US would gamble by entering a war in the Far East for any reason whatsoever unless the US itself came under direct threat or in case of a wider armed conflict involving Japan and South Korea. The US would not risk going to war just because its interests in the region were being threatened. Memories of the Vietnam and the Korean wars are still fresh in the minds of the Americans, not to mention Afghanistan and Iraq.

China is fully convinced that sooner or later Taiwan would be united with the mainland. This is a settled matter for Beijing that is also convinced that if it were to take Taiwan by force it would not face any military challenge and Washington’s response would be nonmilitary in nature.

Some political analysts dismissed the Chinese general’s threats as a war of words. It was however obvious China wanted to show the US that it is uncompromising in its position that Taiwan is part of the Mainland China. Taiwan would always be an easy prey for China. But China’s ambitions to share the world leadership with the US by becoming the second superpower may restrain China’s hands in its dealings with Taiwan.