Itching for a Fight

When former President Lee Teng-hui stood in front of a crowd of 150,000 in Taipei this month to demand that the island's official name be changed from the Republic of China to Taiwan, China was expected to go, well, ballistic. Any move by Taiwan to prove its de facto independence enrages Beijing. When Lee, who was born in Taiwan, was running for President in 1996, Beijing fired missiles into the Taiwan Strait to scare voters away from supporting him. But Beijing's reaction to Lee's recent rally was surprisingly subdued. An official statement said the move had "seriously sabotaged relations" with China,...