美专家质疑 '武统' 台湾 中国官媒回呛 '有这金刚钻么？'

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VOA Chinese, Jan 6, 2018.
https://www.voachinese.com/a/voa ... 180106/4195143.html

Note: The report cites
(a) John Pomfret, Can China Really Take Over Taiwan?  Washington Post, Jan 5, 2018
https://www.washingtonpost.com/n ... y-take-over-taiwan/
("Trump administration officials have told me that the United States wants Taiwan to double its defense expenditures soon. * * * For the first time, legislators from Taiwan were welcomed as a group to the State Department in February" 2017)
(i) "One senior US naval officer even referred to the island as 'the turd in the punchbowl,' befouling closer ties with China."
(A) turd
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/turd
(B) befoul (vt)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/befoul
(ii) "Beijing's contradictory mix of threats * * * and blandishments* * * have only hardened Taiwan's opposition to unification."
(A) blandish (vi & vt; Did You Know?)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blandish
(B) Not to be confused with brandish (vt; Did You Know?)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brandish

brandish
https://www.etymonline.com/word/brandish
pushes it further back, to Old French -- but unrelated to Latin.
(iii) "If making nice with Taiwan has failed, could China use its economic leverage to bring the island to heal [sic]?"

bring [somebody or a living thing] to heel
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bring_to_heel
(iv) The essay cites
Denny Roy, Prospects for Taiwan Maintaining Its Autonomy under Chinese Pressure. Asian Survey, 57: 1135-1158, November/December 2017.
http://as.ucpress.edu/content/57/6/1135
(subscription required to read)
(b) 查希, 看美国砖家砸大陆 '武统，'台湾的绿头巾戏精又憋不住了！ 环球网, Jan 6, 2018.
http://taiwan.huanqiu.com/article/2018-01/11502678.html

"中国有句古话「没有金刚钻，别揽瓷器活」。": from the Web.  The idiom is unknown in Taiwan.