Do threats of violence and displays of murderous intent influence free elections? How should we feel about those who engage in such?

Showing their usual commitment to democracy, freedom, and human rights, France has now teamed up, militarily, with the Communist Chinese in China's bid to use displays of military force to intimidate any of those belligerant Taiwanese who might wish to remain a free, democratic nation.

While China has a long record of such threatening shows of force, what's novel is that France apparently has joined the party, menacing the Taiwanese democracy in a bid to influence its upcoming election.

As if that weren't enough, the France's efforts to get the EU to drop the arms embargo, adopted in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and thus allow Europe to help re-arm the Chinese, in China's bid for regional hegemony. (Learn more historical details on Chinese aggression here, if interested.)

Reuters reports one EU bureaucrat as saying:

"The aim of this is really to sort of strengthen the relationship between the European Union and China on a political and strategic level," an EU press official told Reuters.

Translation: We will help China dominate and absorb its neighbors and subjugate it's own people if they help us oppose the US's policies.

Of course, one of the major US policies is not allowing China to dominate and subjugate it's neighbors, so I suppose Chirac thinks he's getting a two-for-one there. Not to mention all the pretty Eurodollars one can make in a brisk arms trade with an authoritarian power rushing to arm itself to the teeth.

The Reuters article continues:

France has spearheaded the bid to abandon the curbs, arguing the embargo is "anachronistic" given improved Sino-EU ties. The Dutch and Spanish governments have also voiced support for scrapping the ban and last month, Solana was quoted as saying the EU was ready to do so.

But, my mes amis, the embargo wasn't created because of bad "Sino-EU ties" -- it was created because of China's slaughter of political protestors at Tiananmen and continuing poor human rights record, where abuses continue apace today:

China, Belarus and Zimbabwe were highlighted in Wednesday's [US State Department's human rights] hearing.

“Children and youth are subjected to the same torture as adults,” said Ngawang Sangdrol, a former political prisoner from Tibet. “They are suspended in the air with their hands tied behind their back. Torture equipment used in the prisons includes water hoses, leather belts with heavy leather buckles, bamboo canes and electric rods of various sizes which they shove in the prisoner's mouth or prod their body with.”

Congressman Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican and key critic of Beijing had this response.

“We continue to see a deterioration on a multitude of fronts, and that is probably with a great deal of emphasis and exclamation points with regards to the Tibetans, the monks as well as the nuns,” he said.

<sarcasm>Yeah, you know children and youth should always be subjected to different torture than adults; growing children, as you know, have special torture needs. Even Saddam got that one right!</sarcasm>

So while the Bush administration is working to sponsor a UN resolution condemning ongoing Chinese atrocities, France is working hard to working to actively threaten (and ultimately destroy) democracy on the Pacific Rim.

Good show there, Chirac!

France and those who threaten democracy; a marriage made in hell. "When you dance with the devil, you don't change the devil; the devil changes you." As France's internal troubles worsen, and it becomes more comfortable using military force to threaten democracies, how long before it manifests it's love of authoritarianism internally -- using the US as it's scapegoat -- and pulls the rest of the EU along with it?

At long last, France will be important again.

Heaven help us all.

UPDATE: Collin May at Innocents Abroad notes this as well, and dub's France's actions "terrorism light"