By any standard, the last week of September was quite an extraordinary one for China. The week began with the announcement by the Plenum of the Central Committee to accept the resignation of former president Ziang Jemin as chairman of the military committee and replace him with President Hu Juntao, a move that completed the peaceful transfer of power to the younger generation, giving Hu authority as both party and government leader. Then came a flurry of other news reflecting the new, more open China.

Shanghai hosted the first-ever Formula One Gran Prix, won by team Ferrari. At the same time, Serena Williams was on her way to win China's first tennis open championship, also in Shanghai. Both pop star Elton John and the Back Street Boys made first trips to China singing to standing-room only audiences in Beijing. At the handicapped, Para Olympics in Athens, Chinese athletes ran away with the medals. And China also opened one of the largest semiconductor plants in the world, establishing it as a leading producer of those items so crucial to the information age.

Given these promising signs, in my recent discussions there with several of China's most senior government officials, it was surprising that the usual invectives against Taiwan and dire warnings of what would follow should it declare independence from the mainland were so shrill. To those who have not been through this procedure before, Chinese interlocutors routinely harangue outsiders over Taiwan. But during this visit, the threats were less veiled and from senior military officers that this columnist has known well. There was a new intensity to their warnings about using force to unify the nation in the event Taiwan declared independence.

That Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian has threatened declaring independence is not news. Last spring, the Bush administration intervened to convince Chen to dampen his rhetoric. Since his re-election, independence has surfaced again. Earlier this month, Chen's national security adviser appeared in page-long advertisements in the New York Times and the Washington Post bringing attention to Taiwan and the need for the United States to honor its obligation to defend a fellow democracy against Communist China's incursions. So what is going on?

No doubt the Taiwanese government understands that the United States is deeply engaged in Iraq and the war on terror. President Chen may be exploring how much that preoccupation provides an opportunity for Taiwan to push its independence line against the mainland. That China is neuralgic in the extreme to any mention of independence can be counterbalanced by the reality of what China could really achieve by force. Under the current agreements, particularly the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States is obligated to protect the island if China were to attack first.

Some in the West believe that China is bluffing. How China would go about the forceful unification of Taiwan is an interesting question. 120 miles of ocean is formidable barrier to cross especially if the U.S. Seventh Fleet stood in the way. Blockade likewise would be impractical by the relatively weak Chinese Navy, and missile attacks against Taiwan would no doubt cast China as the bully in the eyes of the international community. Nuclear weapons do not appear to be an option. However, the Chinese leadership gives no sign that a military option is a bluff.

Taiwan of course is not the only flash point. North Korea still blusters to turn Japan into a sea of nuclear fire and has not yielded in ending its nuclear aspirations. As Iran exercises missile diplomacy, the underground drums in the Middle East signal that Israel might strike first against Iranian nuclear facilities, as it destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981. While none of these scenarios is new, given American involvement in Iraq, a second major crisis is the last thing that is needed.

There are preventative actions. Innovative diplomacy in which Chinese influence were brought to bear more strongly on North Korea to demand denuclearization -- along with bilateral U.S.-North Korean discussions, which Beijing has supported -- could be followed by a formal restatement of U.S. policy on Taiwan. That statement would reaffirm the policy of one China-two systems and further declare that should China attack Taiwan on an unprovoked basis, the United States would stand by the island democracy. However, should and Taiwan declare independence without cause or provocation, all bets are off.

Some Asian hands will shudder at this arguing that any such declaration would force Japan to go nuclear, fearing America would likewise abandon it. The extreme wings of the Republican and Democratic parties will assail this approach on diametrically opposite ideological grounds. But, as we are already overextended in this global war on terror, innovative and bold policy to preempt crises before they occur seems the best medicine to consider.

(United Press International's Outside View commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)