The Taipei Times seems to be suggesting a rather odd thing.

They seem to be saying that Taiwan, a little island off the coast of the People's Republic of China, could be replacing China as the source for internationally adopted infants in the US. This is something like suggesting Newfoundland could replace the canned fish production of the United States and territories (including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands). Except, of course, human babies aren't canned fish.

As you might guess, though, the article engages in every kind of theorizing over China's new adoption restrictions possible, only without mentioning the recent ratification of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. They're not happy with the idea of Americans adopting Taiwanese infants, it seems. I don't I would be either, after reading a few articles like that.

Politically, things between Taiwan and China are as shaky as ever (in the seismic sense, too, as it turns out), and they haven't got much of a reason to look kindly on the U.S., either:

The US government has made it clear that it will not back Taiwan's plan to apply for WHO membership under the name "Taiwan." On the diplomatic front, the major obstacle facing Taiwan is the US' adherence to the "one China" policy.

So a story like that makes a little bit of sense, since it uses adoption to poke at two of Taiwan's big adversaries.

On the other hand, the wheels of business don't stop for diplomacy, and if Chinese pirate Wiis can make Taiwan dollars, then they're going to be sold for Taiwan dollars.

I'm nervous, though, about adoption being used in this way by the warring siblings of Taiwan and the People's Republic. They're actually fairly close for countries that officially don't get along, with colonies of Taiwanese businessmen being perfectly happy to live on the mainland. There are 500,000 of them in the Yangtze River Delta (including Shanghai) alone.

And you can't help but wonder how many of them read the Taipei Times over morning tea. And maybe chat about the headlines with their 2,000,000 or so local Chinese coworkers.