This month, Taiwan's former president Lee Teng-hui was awarded an honorary doctorate in theology by the Taiwan Theological College to celebrate its 132nd anniversary. He had never sought to hide his Christian affiliation, the college said in its citation, and had always brought Christian principles to bear on his policy decisions.

It is sometimes claimed that if present trends continue in Europe (but not the US), there will be few practising Christians left 50 years from now. The same cannot be said of Asia. Today, there are probably as many church-going Christians in Taiwan as there have ever been. Quite what this signifies, though, is not entirely clear.

In Taiwan, being a Christian sometimes appears akin to seeing to it that your children take piano lessons. It is not strictly religious belief or a love of music that is important, but rather a feeling that you should keep yourself and your family somewhat apart from the rest of the population.

But one reason for the high numbers may be the influence of the US: the fact that religious observance is not declining in the US or Asia may not be coincidental. Nor is the personal example of individual Americans the only factor. It was not so long ago that having professing Christians in charge of non-communist Asian states was the policy of statesmen in Washington. In the 1950s, men like Dwight D. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles believed that Buddhism was too pliable a philosophy to stand up to the communist threat.

What Asia needed, they thought, was stalwart Christians at the helm, and this is precisely what - to their satisfaction - they found. Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan, Rhee Syngman in South Korea and Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam were all Christian leaders presiding over overwhelmingly non-Christian populations. They may not have got where they were as a result of specific American strategies, but it was certainly the considered policy of Washington to keep them there.

As far as the situation in Taiwan went, Chiang's Christianity (he was an avowed Methodist) was not without its influence on the state of affairs on the island. But whatever else it did, it did not lead him to believe that religious faith implied democracy in any form.

Mr Lee may prove to have been the last of his line. Today, Christianity is seldom mentioned in Taiwan's ever-turbulent political scene. As for ordinary believers, reports indicate that they are more concerned with mundane issues, such as whether they should hold incense sticks when attending the funerals of non-Christian family members, than life after death, or the like. Religion, it is felt, should not have such an intellectual dimension.

The Anti-Secession Law was enacted with the aim of preventing Taiwan breaking away from China. In the period leading up to the passing of the legislation, there was much speculation that it would lead to the two sides of the Taiwan Strait getting closer to armed conflict. Indeed, Taiwan has responded strongly.

On closer reading of the law, however, one should not paint such a pessimistic picture. For one thing, it has not forced reunification on Taiwan, but only sets out the mainland's bottom line to keep the cross-strait status quo.

Article 2 says that there is only "one China" and that "both the mainland and Taiwan belong to one China". Such phraseology has not deviated from the mainland's standard wording.

Beijing accepts the so-called 1992 consensus, whereby both the mainland and Taiwanese authorities subscribed to there being "one China" - but each could interpret it in its own way, with Taiwan clinging to the Republic of China legacy. The "one China" policy underpinning the Anti-Secession Law is no harsher than in the past.

Article 3 depicts the Taiwan question as one left over from China's civil war several decades ago. Implicitly, this recognises the current divided state, with two "governments" and rival jurisdictions within one country, a state of affairs that made the 1992 consensus a pragmatic way of framing the problem. The law has not equated "one China" to the People's Republic. Beijing has left room for manoeuvre in cross-strait negotiations over the future form of reunification.

Under Article 5, using peaceful means to achieve reunification is still Beijing's policy goal. Since the 1970s, when China became an active international player, its leaders have repeatedly emphasised that a peaceful reunification is preferred, but military means will not be ruled out as a last resort. In a sense, there is nothing new in the law.

Essentially, Beijing wants to make one thing clear to Taiwan's leaders and its people, as well as to the international community (in particular the US and Japan, which have now factored Taiwan into their regional co-operation pact). That is, should the island choose to alter outright the divided-nation status quo by declaring independence, then Beijing would have no choice but to use military force.

However, precisely because the mainland's bottom line is so clearly set out, Taiwan's leaders would now be reluctant to force it into a corner. President Chen Shui-bian and his Democratic Progressive Party know that their setback in last December's legislative election was partly because their unduly dogmatic de-Sinoisation proposals backfired. The consensus among Taiwan's population favours preserving the status quo.

Indeed, the Anti-Secession Law may play into the hands of the DPP, which could use it to justify a less gung-ho pro-independence stance and focus instead on more pragmatic cross-strait negotiations. On its part, Beijing also has to change tack and be more geared towards negotiating with Taipei about peaceful coexistence within the existing, fuzzy "one-China" notion.

Articles 6 and 7 of the law extend an olive branch to Taiwanese authorities. They call for cross-strait direct links, and consultations and negotiations on such matters as the official ending of the state of hostilities, development of cross-strait relations and steps for peaceful reunification. Beijing, in a sense, has responded to Mr Chen's earlier framework for peaceful developments.

The writing on the wall is not as jingoistic as some might suspect. If both sides could act with good sense and restraint then, one day, it may be possible to say - with hindsight - that the Anti-Secession Law actually helped make war less likely.

Anthony Cheung Bing-leung is a professor of public administration at City University of Hong Kong and chairman of SynergyNet, a policy think-tank.

The delicacy of the arrangements to safeguard the high degree of autonomy that Hong Kong is meant to enjoy under "one country, two systems" has been exposed as never before in the wake of Tung Chee-hwa's resignation.

It is clear that the Hong Kong government is unlikely to be much of a force for the preservation of this autonomy. The issue of the tenure of the chief executive to be elected in July reflects how the guardians of our vaunted legal system can collapse once Beijing applies a little pressure.

For many years - indeed, until less than two weeks ago - Hong Kong took the position that the Basic Law provided for all new chief executives to serve a full five-year term, rather than simply serving out the remainder of the term of the previous chief executive, if he or she resigned.

Now, however, top officials have made a U-turn. Secretary for Justice Elsie Leung Oi-sie, after talking to mainland legal experts, has decided that the government was wrong for the past four years. The correct understanding of the Basic Law, she now says, is that a chief executive elected as a result of a resignation serves only the remainder of the term of the previous chief executive.

The danger is that the Hong Kong government's view on legal issues may become increasingly irrelevant. Ironically, Miss Leung told the legislature on March 15 that the next chief executive can theoretically serve for 12 years - the remainder of Mr Tung's term plus two five-year terms - but Constitutional Affairs Secretary Stephen Lam Sui-lung immediately pointed out that the Hong Kong government could not make a decision on this issue, but had to consult the central government.

There is little detectable will on the part of senior Hong Kong officials to stand up for the rights of the city and its people. Rather, the tendency seems to be to second-guess Beijing and do what it wants.

Instead of pinning our hopes on the Hong Kong government, it is more realistic to hope that the mainland will be careful not to encroach too much on the city's autonomy. If Beijing does, the "one country, two systems" policy will not work, and the world will see the central government reneging on its promises. Moreover, there is still Taiwan, which Beijing hopes can be induced to rejoin the motherland using the Hong Kong model.

"One country, two systems", after all, was Beijing's brainchild and so it is really up to the central government to see that it works. And what is required more than anything else is the exercise of restraint. Such restraint was evident in the first years after the handover. It was less in evidence last year, when the central authorities decided to rule out universal suffrage for Hong Kong in the near future.

However, there are some optimistic signs. For one thing, after the demonstration by more than 500,000 protesters on July 1, 2003, Beijing accepted the shelving of the national security legislation that sparked the public outcry. The central government knows that huge demonstrations are a reflection of poor governance.

Moreover, on the choice of the new chief executive, Beijing has decided to accept Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, the most popular official within the administration, rather than insisting on someone possibly more to its liking. Mr Tsang, after all, is not trusted by all in Beijing because he faithfully served the British colonial government, and was even rewarded with a knighthood.

Foreign Ministry Commissioner in Hong Kong Yang Wenchang said a few weeks ago that Beijing will accept whoever the Hong Kong people prefer for chief executive. That is certainly an enlightened view. Hopefully, Beijing now realises that the job of the chief executive is first and foremost to serve the people of Hong Kong and not to do the bidding of the central government. If this is the thinking in Zhongnanhai, then there may be hope for Hong Kong's autonomy, after all.

Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based writer and commentator.

frank.ching@gmail.com

In recent weeks, China has announced a 12.6 per cent increase in its defence spending; America's CIA director, Porter Goss, testified about a worsening military balance in the Taiwan Strait; and US President George W. Bush pleaded with Europeans not to lift their embargo on arms sales to China. Yet Chinese leaders have spoken of the nation's "peaceful rise" or its "peaceful development".

Analysts have said that China cannot rise peacefully, and predict that Washington and Beijing are likely to engage in an intense security competition with considerable potential for war. Optimists point out that China has engaged in good-neighbour policies since the 1990s, settled border disputes, played a greater role in international institutions and recognised the benefits of using soft power. But sceptics reply that China is merely waiting for its economy to lay the basis for future hegemony.

Who is right? We will not know for some time, but the debaters should recall the warning by Greek historian Thucydides, more than 2,000 years ago, that belief in the inevitability of conflict can become one of its main causes. Each side, believing that it will end up at war with the other, makes reasonable military preparations that are read by the other side as confirmation of its worst fears.

In fact, the "rise of China" is a misnomer. "Re-emergence" would be more accurate. Technically and economically, China was the world's leader (although without global reach) from 500 to 1500. Only in the last 500 years was it overtaken by Europe and America.

Nonetheless, China still has a long way to go and faces many obstacles. The US economy is about twice the size of China's; if it grows by only 2 per cent annually, and China's economy grows by 6 per cent, they could reach parity sometime after 2025. Even so, they would not be equal in composition or sophistication. China would still have a vast, underdeveloped countryside, and would not equal the US in per capita income until sometime after 2075 (depending on the measures of comparison).

As long as China's economy does grow, its military power is likely to increase, thus making it appear more dangerous to its neighbours, and complicating America's commitments in Asia. A study by the Rand Corporation think-tank projects that by 2015, China's military expenditure will be more than six times higher than Japan's, and its accumulated military capital stock will be roughly five times higher (measured at purchasing power parity).

Whatever the accuracy of such assessments, the outcome will also depend on what the US and other countries do. The key to military power in the information age depends on the ability to collect, process, disseminate and integrate complex systems of space-based surveillance, high-speed computers, and "smart" weapons. China and others will develop some of these capabilities, but, according to analysts, China is unlikely to close the gap with the US soon. China's inability to compete with the US on a global basis does not mean that it could not challenge its position in East Asia, or that war over Taiwan is impossible. Weaker countries sometimes attack when they feel backed into a corner, such as Japan did at Pearl Harbour, or China did when it entered the Korean war in 1950. If, for example, Taiwan declared independence, Beijing would be likely to intervene with force, regardless of the economic or military costs. But it would be unlikely to win such a war, and prudent policy on both sides can make such a war unlikely.

There is no need for the US and China to go to war. Not every rising power leads to war. If China's rise remains peaceful, it promises great benefits to its people and its neighbours - and to Americans. But, remembering Thucydides' advice, it will be important not to mistake analysts' theories for reality, and to continue pointing this out to political leaders.

Joseph Nye, a former US assistant secretary of defence, is a professor at Harvard University.

Copyright: Project Syndicate