Cam Ranh Bay - 25 year lease (1979-2004) - terminated 2 May 2002 - open for bidding.

As to Taiwan, 45 senators tell Obama: Sell Taiwan some F-16s already! (at FP, by Josh Rogin, May 26, 2011) (an interesting Senatorial coalition):

Unless the United States sells Taiwan some new fighter jets, the military balance between Taiwan and China will continue to spiral out of control to the detriment of both Taiwanese and U.S. security, 45 U.S. senators wrote on Thursday to President Barack Obama.
....
The letter was spearheaded by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and James Inhofe (R-OK), the two senators who resurrected the Senate Taiwan Caucus in January just in time for the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao. But it was also signed by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), the two leaders of the brand-new China Working Group, which was created to build ties between Congress and Beijing.
....
But there's little prospect the Obama administration will approve the sale of F-16s to Taiwan anytime soon. Its decision to sell Taiwan $6.2 billion of arms in early 2010 provoked a reaction from Beijing that scuttled U.S.-China military-to-military cooperation for over a year -- and that sale didn't even include any F-16s.
....
Gates told the Chinese that the arms sales would continue, as they have for decades, under the Taiwan Relations Act, a U.S. law that mandates that the United States support Taiwan's self-defense.
The Taiwan Relations Act has a title referencing JMA's most favorite US Pres:

Full title - An act to help maintain peace, security, and stability in the Western Pacific and to promote the foreign policy of Jimmy Carter by authorizing the continuation of commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people on Taiwan, and for other purposes.
And indeed, the US will -

"consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States"
which in DiploSpeak says "we ain't committed to do a damn thing".

Pres. Carter unilaterally abrogated the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, which led to the SCOTUS case of Goldwater v. Carter (Barry lost):

Holding - The issue at hand, whether President Carter could unilaterally break a defense treaty with the Republic of China without Senate approval, was essentially a political question and could not be reviewed by the court, as Congress had not issued a formal opposition. The case was dismissed.
The net result is an intentional "strategic ambiguity".

If the US and China get into an armed conflict over Taiwan, the assets of China and its citizens (including US bonds) are subject to seizure under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act:

The IEEPA authorizes the president to declare the existence of an "unusual and extraordinary threat... to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States" that originates "in whole or substantial part outside the United States." It further authorizes the president, after such a declaration, to block transactions and freeze assets to deal with the threat. In the event of an actual attack on the United States, the president can also confiscate property connected with a country, group, or person that aided in the attack.
We did it to the Germans in both World Wars - but, of course, there has to be a will to use both military and political powers.

Absent a will to defend Taiwan (legally absent since 1980), Carl's scenario - "Look for the connected media to start floating ...." seems plausible. Does that mean I should be watching MSNBC for clues ?

Regards

Mike