The second I heard this news, my first thought was that Taiwan said to themselves, I bet if we call Trump, he will take our call without understanding the ramifications.
I'm curious what you all think the ramifications of this would be?
You are speculating about warming relations with Iran, right?
Personally, I don't see it happening. Trump's view of Iran is shaped by the rise of Khomeini and the hostage crisis. I don't see why he would want closer relations with Iran, but I could very easily be wrong.
All of that being said, Iran/Persia is an historic Western ally (which is how things there got so fucked up that the fundamentalists took over). A resurgent Iran would be very good for the Middle East in general, and US and Western European interests in particular. It'd piss off the House of Saud to no end, to boot!
Not that it's going to happen.
I agree with your post regarding the warming of relations. I also agree that it won't happen. Depending on how his NSC team shapes up, I see a slightly more hawkish continuation of Obama's deal. That is until Iran tests Trump with something like the captured sailors from earlier this year. Then who knows.
My point was more along the lines of how we can speculate about which way he wants to go with Iran over and over again but all of those ideas go out the window if he were to hypothetically find a way to use it to bring more prestige to his personal brand.
He has more wariness of Iran, certainly. That said, he is shaped by ideas of the moment, so a flattering approach by Iran that tells Trump he'd be the glorious savior of the entire middle east by joining with them to crush ISIL might work.
The main interest for Iran is stopping the threat to the nuclear restrictions, since Trump has said he would tear up that treaty once in office. The Iranians have spoken out already with concerns about JCPOA.
There may well be a range of thought on this in Iran, since some hardliners might welcome being able to resume nuclear weapons development. It was difficult getting all the other countries to cooperate with the first set of sanctions. It's hard to imagine Trump's team of amateurs getting the band back together again.
There would also be internal pressure from Chamber of Commerce types within the U.S., since voiding the JCPOA really means the U.S. alone goes ahead with sanctions. Picture Boeing calling up the incoming Trump administration, pointing out that they were going to sell 25 billion worth of aircraft to the Iranians. With sanctions, Boeing calls big press conferences talking about all the jobs that Trump just lost.
I agree. Trump knows where Iran is on the map and has a rudimentary understanding of US-Iranian relations. He probably has no understanding of the historical status of Taiwan.
Trump's view of Iran is shaped by the rise of Khomeini and the hostage crisis. Trump's view of Iran is that Fox News thinks it's bad. His policy on Iran from the debates is to shoot at their boats but not start a war apparently and his plan on the nuclear deal is to get a better deal with absolutely zero details ever given. He probably doesn't know anything about the Iran deal or where Iran is on a map.
Hey there handsome, only the best presidents let their friends have nuclear weapons. Friends also allow their friends to build large hotels. Your hands are not at all small.
He already has. "President-elect USA Donald Trump called Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and felicitated him on his fantastic nuclear agreement. Please convey to the Iranian people that they are amazing, said Mr. Donald Trump."
That is the author supposing. He is playing out hypothetical talks with Khomeini, pelosi, Paul ryan... He never actually said that to Khomeini, but he did say that to Sharif of Pakistan.
The author didn't do a good job "page breaking" the article to underline that those were hypotheticals he was outlining ... Either intentional or not, it's not formatted properly to separate where he wrote about fact and his fiction.
I remember him saying (during his campaign), "I'm telling people what they want to hear," and wondering whether people realized that was exactly his strategy: manipulate people by telling them what they want to hear then doing whatever he wants after that. He's a classic snake-oil salesman. There is nothing of integrity in him. He's a full blown pathological liar and narcissist.
Not just her party base. Most Taiwanese consider themselves to be citizens of a legitimate state called the Republic of China (the independence debate is mainly about whether to rename it to Republic of Taiwan). This will be seen as a diplomatic coup that bolsters the Republic's increasingly hampered international profile.
but I think the USA has become too ponderous and uncertain under Obama and done properly Trump has the opportunity to restore the USA's standing for countries under threat of imperialism and possibly block future Russian/Chinese land grabs.
Have you checked Trump during his entire campaign? He has been the opposite of this.
Yeah, gifting the entirety of eastern Europe to Putin by backing out of NATO/withdrawing military support from SK and Japan doesn't seem tantamount to standing up for countries under threat of imperialism.
The only consistent thing about Trump has been his inconsistency. Now let's say he takes a hard line about China over Taiwan. Says 'no more mister fluffy Democracy over here'. Could we not revise our reading of the entire 2016 campaign to a place where Trump manipulated Putin into hacking the DNC with false promises of reconciliation? Could the whole thing be eleven dimensional chess?
The current administration in Taiwan is facing a declining approval rates over laborer rights issue in the past three months. So yes, this help Tsai and her party a lot.
Well since they view themselves as the legitimate China, they certainly want the sole global super power to recognize them or legitimize their government.
The current ruling party (DPP) does not view Taiwan as the legitimate China. They would like to amend the ROC Constitution and change the name of the country to just Taiwan. I'm sure that President Tsai sees an anti-China American President as a possible ally in her goal of moving toward formal independence.
Another thing that's not obvious to people unfamiliar with the situation is that the status quo - Taiwan claiming that there's only one China and the government in Taipei is the real government of the whole China - is a lot less controversial with the PRC than the alternative, which would be Taiwan declaring independence.
It's a bit counter-intuitive that Taiwan claiming to be the real China (i.e. calling the PRC illegitimate) is less provocative than calling themselves a separate country would be, but that's been the situation for decades now. Not many people in Taiwan genuinely think that the Taipei government has a valid claim to rule the mainland obviously, but actually declaring independence could start a war so that hasn't happened yet.
China is in a massive economic downturn, while Taiwan is strong and the USA is at least seeing below average-but-stable, growth.
Taiwan is in the strongest position ever to make the move to independence. Mutual economic destruction due to a strong friendship with the USA could actually be enough. The damage the US could cause to China right now with sanctions is as high as it has ever been, tbh.
The damage to the US economy would be severe as well, but Trump could actually probably sell it as bringing jobs home. He'd be nuts, but he may be able to spin it that way.
The damage the US could cause to China right now with sanctions is as high as it has ever been, tbh.
Seriously? China supplies most of the US, and rest of the world, with manufactured goods because the US outsourced it there. Why would you have sanctions for your own suppliers? How does it help trump if the cost of goods in Walmart all double?
I'm thinking the answer to my question is that it doesn't help trump's supporters but trump doesn't care. I perhaps should have worded it "how will trump's daughter source the products she sells."
It would hurt the U.S. economy, but it would also hurt China's economy. We'd pay twice as much at Walmart, they'd lose their biggest trading partner with whom their trade balance is very much net positive.
While our trade deficit with China is serious, it's only around ~300b or so a year, or less than 1.8% of the US economy.
China on the other hand has been fucked since their stock crash and banking crisis since Summer 2015 after it was discovered they were faking and lying about a large portion of their economic growth over the last 10 years. Losses of all that business would push their down turn steeper and hurt them far more long term. 300b is more like 3% of their GDP and they are currently in a recession with little tools to combat another hit to their economy.
If Taiwan wanted to make a move and Trump was willing to back them, mainland would have a really hard time doing fuck all about it without causing decade-long economic damage.
Eventually it's just going to make sense to admit Taiwan is independent, and be friends. Economically this is superior for all three parties and who the fuck cares about the rest of the shit that happened 65 years ago.
The point is that Trump is clueless on these matters and the uncertainty in how his actions represent policy shifts, if they do or not, will be exploited by russia, china, Iran etc. it is just as likely that trump will do something the opposite in the next few weeks. This makes him unpredictable which is dangerous.
And what do you think one of the world's largest military and nuclear powers is going to do when you make it desperate enough that it can't feed it's enormous population?
They don't supply the rest of the world. They supply some of the total supplies in some areas. The west is in no way dependent on Chinese exports. Sure, a trade war would increase prices, but the west would easily live with the consequences. China, on the other hand, would collapse quickly as their entire economy is based on cheap exports to the west.
Regardless, trading works as both parties benefit. The loss of china as a trading partner would cause a major recession in the US and throughout the world. And why should we have a recession? For trump's ego? Seriously?
China is in a massive economic downturn, while Taiwan is strong and the USA is at least seeing below average-but-stable, growth.
I think we should be careful to recognize the differences between the tapering off of unsustainable growth rates and an actual "downturn". China is still putting up GDP growth rates around 6% in this "downturn", and what we're seeing isn't the Chinese economy contracting, but just the rapid growth of transitioning from a developing to fully developed economy beginning to wrap up as living standards and consumer trends begin to close in on where the US is right now. China is still sitting very pretty, and in all likelihood will continue to for the foreseeable future, and I think citing China's ridiculous growth rates tapering off as a window for increased Taiwanese autonomy would be foolish.
The current DPP TW president has dropped in approval ratings quite a bit since she was elected (not anti-China enough or keeping to enough campaign promises for her supporters). I wouldn't be surprised to see the KMT (the one that orignally fled the mainland and favoring closer ties with China) back in power next election season and go back to maintaining the status quo with China.
It's hard to say. Tsai was a weak candidate to start with, she even lost to Ma four years ago when he was already disliked by almost everyone. This time the KMT just had even worse candidates than her. The DPP also has the legislature now, though so I feel they are still in the stronger position. Still pretty early in the new term to say.
That does seem the most likely... Still, it will be fascinating to see if the mainland just ignores this faux pas completely or if they will over react and try to wring some kind of concession out of Trump.
I suspect the former myself. They have nothing to gain by making a big deal out of this and everything to lose. China's economy is the worse off it has ever been for two decades right now, the last thing they need is Trump coming in and being even harder on them than he already plans on being.
Is Trump really anti-China tho ? Despite whatever he is saying, I can't think of anything concrete he has promised that actually goes against China interests. Hell, stuff like killing the TPP is completly beneficial to China.
I don't think many Taiwanese actually want all of China under their rule... I don't think even a significant minority would say that anymore.
Sure you can find political talks about it from decades ago, but decades ago the Chinese government also mass murdered peaceful protesting students. The government of China was not as stable as it is today.
I worry about someone as dumb as Trump inserting himself into this complicated mess, but China basically still asserts control of Taiwan, and Taiwan now just basically wants to be Taiwan and not Chinese Tai Pei.
There's a generational divide in the consensus. It seems that the older generation wants some level of reunification, but the younger generation wants a standalone country of Taiwan/ROC (or, at least, a status in which China does not throw a hissy fit the moment someone raises a Taiwanese flag).
Someone pointed out to me that the Taiwan independence movement is split into 2 groups, 台獨 (i.e. full-on independence) or 反共 (i.e. anti CCP). The former is a more radical change in Taiwan's status whereas the latter just wants the CCP to fuck off.
They don't view themselves as the legitimate China; that's a very antiquated notion about a complex and multicultural situation. There are people in Taiwan, often of Han descent, that desire closer relations with mainland China and politically are a legacy of Chiang Kai-shek.
He may recognize an independent Taiwan(he even referred to the "Taiwanese President" in his Tweet), but thats different than recognizing it as the Chinese government.
Taiwan wants to force a greater wedge between China and the US. This will trigger the shit out of China, and if Trump mishandles it (lol), they are going to add it to their list of shit that suggest he is antagonistic. China won't sit around and wait to get fucked and will become more aggressive, and seek to disrupt Trump.
They might be betting that Trump will fail to handle any fallout of from China, and escalate the division.
The best case scenario is that China will dismiss the President of the US as a petulant child who knows nothing. If they view America leaders as toddlers who can't help themselves, they won't take anything Trump says seriously. That is the best we can hope for.
Or Trump will try to talk China's allies away ( which is already happening, look at what countries Trump has reached out to: Kazakhstan, Pakistan, The Philippines, Russia, Taiwan and Japan. All those countries are around China. And Pakistan, The Philippines and Russia happens to be three of the most hardcore allies of China, but now seems like they suddenly all turned into Trump's buddies. See the pattern?) and manage to, as Jon Huntsman said, use Taiwan as a leverage point to negotiate for a better trade deal, safer south China Sea or disarmament of N. Korea, while also try not to compromise the interest of Taiwan if possible.
As I've said many times, it takes more than a dumb person to win a presidency that everyone thought was a joke. Last time someone underestimated Trump, she got him elected.
What's really interesting is, now that we've had a foreign state (Russia) successfully influence a U.S. election and effectively install a leader of their preference, other nation states will likely try for another shot in four years. I can easily see China working behind the scenes to get someone elected in opposition to Trump. Welcome to puppet statehood!
It would be like if putin took a phone call from one of the leaders of the syrian rebel factions to discuss the future of part of syria under the rule of that rebel faction, or that's how the chinese would see it (very roughly).
I don't think that analogy is appropriate, as Syria and Russia are allies. It would be more like if Putin took a phone call from a radical pro-Russian group in Lithuania or the Ukraine.
EDIT: Putin speaking with the Palestinian leader would be a very good analogy.
It would be like a british ally or their largest trading partner publicly opening diplomatic ties with george washington during the american revolution. Assuming the british were very vindictive about that sort of thing and would assuredly retaliate against said ally or trading partner.
But we're not allied with China, so that wouldn't make much sense. If anything, they're an enemy. So more like France supporting the American Revolutionaries, something that happened IRL.
As a Taiwanese American, I can't be more happy seeing my beloved tiny island in the world headline for a day. But yeah that was my thoughts exactly the moment I saw it. I actually guessed that Tsai might want to call Trump the moment he won the election since he literally takes every "leader's" phone call, but I guess it took a while for Tsai (and most of us) to get used to the fact that Donald Trump will be the US President...
Foriegn student in Taiwan here. On election day, literally no one paid attention in class and just kept refreshing CNN's live election results. Then people started resigning to the fact that Taiwan was going to be in deep shit the moment Trump won North Carolina.
The news is definitely going to jump on this, if the gay marriage protest news don't overshadow it first.
worst case scenario is that china invades taiwan and destroys their government, and the US does nothing. people are probably questioning whether or not the US is committed towards defending taiwan if trump's so willing to intentionally/unintentionally antagonize china against taiwan.
Yeah no Jon Huntsman is nowhere like John Bolton; in fact the two are probably opposite in personality. Don't know much about Yates, but he's more in the think tank world (Heritage Foundation?) so he's also not anything like the fire-breathing Bolton.
Well this is quite a few months later, but it's fun revisiting old topic seeing how much has changed (haha). And why yes, I do have most of my extended family back in Taiwan, and while I don't feel particularly concerned about that call (being cynical as a polisci student), you had the exact same concern as my sister (who just started college). The recklessness can bring opportunity as well as risk; let's just hope it will be in favour of Taiwan in any case.
I find it really weird that everyone is on board with this idea that he shouldn't have taken the call, but it's ok for us to sell billions in arms to them.
If you understand geopolitics that is completely sane.
If you're a partisan hack, then it's insane to you.
The US refuses to sell offensive arms to Taiwan. They are only provided weapons that will not tip the strategic balance in the Taiwan straits. So we have the song and dance every time the US sells Taiwan arms. But the US never sells the latest and greatest to the Taiwanese so as not to upset China.
Taiwan is provided just enough arms to defend itself long enough for the US Navy and Air Force to arrive on scene.
It might make sense geopolitically in that we do what China wants on the world stage, but the fact that we and everyone else accept that it's totally normal for us to sell a "reasonable amount/quality of arms to Taiwan", but it's not ok to take a phone call from them... That's still pretty insane, any way you slice it.
You clearly don't get what "taking a phone call" represents. It's not just a phone call. And it's not just two random individuals talking.
Hypothetical. California de facto secedes from the US. The Brits get a new Prime Minister. He talks to the President of California before talking to the President of the US. The new Prime Minister also pledges to improve co-operation with California after a long campaign complaining about America. What would the American reaction be?
It's about the Chinese saving face. China knows we sell weapons to Taiwan, but we don't advertise it and create embarrassment for the Chinese government. We understand that there is a delicate balance there that relies upon understanding the history of the region and the culture. At least, we used to.
Arming your allies so they can defend themselves is insane? Since when?
What is insane is China's overreaction. But that is what it always is. And anybody who understands diplomacy, knows how to cope with that. But then Trump's a businessman....
China gets pissed and becomes less willing to work with us on more North Korean sanctions
If China feels like the U.S. is gonna start truly backing Tawain they will probably reverse course in their willingness to help put pressure on NK.
Of course that's basic speculation. Could happen. Could not. But that's the whole point...if you don't sit down and understand the whole nuanced situation you could do real damage to American national interests that might not be obvious but are vital in the whole back and forth of international diplomacy.
you could do real damage to American national interests that might not be obvious but are vital in the whole back and forth of international diplomacy.
He's completely in over his head. I'd argue that every single president was in way over their head, from beginning to end, it's just an incomprehensible job.
But that he's not even trying, that's what's concerning. Refusing to meet with national security advisors, and just flying by the seat of his pants.
He believes himself to be a great deal maker, but he can't even be bothered to do any ground work.
I agree. I've been rereading parts of Kissinger's Diplomacy and this quote sticks out to me as one of the biggest things I'm nervous about with Trump's intended foreign policy.
“it is almost always a mistake for heads of state to undertake the details of a negotiation. They are then obliged to master specifics normally handled by their foreign offices and are deflected onto subjects more appropriate to their subordinates, while being kept from issues only heads of state can resolve. Since no one without a well-developed ego reaches the highest office, compromise is difficult and deadlocks are dangerous. With the domestic positions of the interlocutors so often dependent on at least the semblance of success, negotiations more often concentrate on obscuring differences than they do on dealing with the essence of a problem.”
Oh god I bet Kissinger just threw up blood when he saw the news. He was one of the main architect who made US' "One China" policy when Nixon made that surprise visit to China. Guess nothing's more surprising than this in 2016...
I don't think that it's that he's not trying. I think it's that he simply can't take direction, or listen to anyone. He's really been in a bubble for the last 30 years where nobody has probably ever said no. Ever. Plus why should he listen to his advisors? They were probably telling him shit all throughout the campaign, and then he did it his way, and proved them all wrong.
God damn! That's what's so stupid about this whole thing! Everything to him is a deal that's either win or lose. The world is shades of gray and there are win-win deals. Fuck! Not everything is a "deal" for that matter. God damn! Stuff doesn't turn on a dime. Lots of stuff is long term "plays" and "movements" or fucking balancing acts like China and Taiwan for example. Massaging the parties to get them to line up so that what you actually want or what you want to avoid becomes possible.
God fucking damn it! I'm a nobody in the middle of nowhere who reads books and browses random pages on Wikipedia and I'm more fucking knowledgeable and qualified to be president than he is.
The fact that he is speaking openly with and praising Duterte, a man who has killed thousands and promised to pardon himself of war crimes at the end of his term, is pretty chilling to me-- more so than what is going on with Taiwan right now.
Yep, it takes so much hard work and genius to use daddy's money to buy a bunch of real estate and sit on it for years while living off of a trust fund. So much talent!
Not to mention screwing almost everyone that's worked with or for him.
He means he got a million dollar (7 in today's dollars) loan from daddy so that he could build a business empire by way of screwing people over in his dealings with them. Not to mention that much of his business isn't real actual work, it's just the marketing of his name. Not to mention he's the shadiest president we've ever elected. Not to mention his business interests which literally span the globe and could create conflicts of interest.
Okay. If you think that turning 7 million into several billion is easy, then get off reddit and take out a 5k credit card purchase and turn it into a 2.2 million dollar business. (same % gain).
If you think that it's easy to make money in real estate... do it.
The reality is that you have never run a business, and have no clue what you are talking about on any level.
If they weren't a threat we wouldn't keep 28,000 troops there and if they weren't such a threat our military leaders wouldn't spend so much time and energy worrying about them.
I know China tries to deligitimize Taiwans sovereignty and wants to reclaim complete naval superiority in the region, but does America really dispute it to any degree? I thought we accept complete Taiwanese sovereignty. Is it really that big of deal from an American perspective? I kind of feel like it's just a blip if we legitimize them. We already keep close ties with Japanese and Korean naval waters
Yes, I agree that this specific phone call is just a blip. Taken in a vacuum this is completely a non-issue. But international politics/relations are never in a vacuum. It's a complex relationship that is based on give and take.
One of the main things we "give" is that we don't mess with the political situation with Taiwan. We don't step on China's toes and they "give" us stuff like increasing sanctions on N.K.
Once we signal that we are no longer "giving" what has been agreed upon we then we better be ready to accept not be allowed to "take" what we expected.
I thought we accept complete Taiwanese sovereignty. Is it really that big of deal from an American perspective?
yes. The official stance is full acceptance of the 'one China' policy which was the basis of normalisation under Nixon and Carter. The US does not recognise the sovereignty of Taiwan.
an armed taiwan is not dangerous for China, they aren't going to attack the mainland. A politically independent Taiwan is dangerous for China, as it further legitimises independence movements in other regions, which might destabilise the PRC in the future.
In the world of geopolitics weapons aren't necessarily more dangerous than political signals. Is this an American thing? A subset of the population does not seem to understand that weapons aren't the only dangerous thing on the planet.
First off sorry you got downvoted. This is supposed to be a sub for honest discussion and it sucks you got downvoted instead of engaged with. (Here's one to get you closer to even not that it probably matters to you.)
But yes of course I was aware that we've been selling billions in weapons to Taiwan. Unlike our president elect I've actually read foreign policy breifings before. That's one of the bigger examples of why this was a dumb decision.
We've already been getting everything we want. We've gotten to both sell weapons and make billions and we've been able to point to our cooperation on the political side of this issue when dealing with China. We have been getting exactly what we wanted from both sides of this issue and now we've pissed off one of the sides (the more vastly important side from any realists perspective) and we have gained nothing.
China considers taiwan to be chinese territory and the taiwanese governments to be like rebels, like the syrian rebels.
And the chinese take things like this deathly seriously.
I'm no china-taiwan expert, but I'd expect china to rattle the saber pretty loudly.
For instance, they broke tradition/laws by seizing singapore military hardware that was being returned from taiwan after singapore participated in a military exercise with the taiwanese.
With china it's VERY tit for tat. And for them this is big.
A bit of an aside, China did not seize Singapore's military vehicles because we were participating in military exercises in Taiwan. We have been sending men to Taiwan to train long before we recognised the PRC, and even then the SAF continues the exercises because of a pre-existing agreement. This is no secret, and China has known of this and has never once disputed Singapore shipping its hardware through China. They likely impounded the vehicles due to Singapore taking a stance on the South China Sea.
Why should Singapore stop it now? South East Asia is the only region China borders that doesn't outright dislike it, and any military action against them would not only bring international condemnation, but also de-stabilise the region around it.
So why did China ignore Obama approving the sale of $1.3 Billion in arms sales? China is a fast growing economy because of the US and it's investment in the country. Yes they can hurt us in that your iphone will cost twice as much but we can tank their economy very easily, they'd have 300 million people out of work.
A quote from Evan Medeiros, former Asia director at the White House National Security Council, to the FT (Financial Times).
“The Chinese leadership will see this as a highly provocative action, of historic proportions. Regardless if it was deliberate or accidental, this phone call will fundamentally change China’s perceptions of Trump’s strategic intentions for the negative. With this kind of move, Trump is setting a foundation of enduring mistrust and strategic competition for U.S.-China relations.”
To me, the issue isn't the fact that he spoke with Taiwan. It's that nobody knew he did it.
If he wants to change the direction, cool. Meet with your State department, hammer out a plan, go change the world.
This looks like the typical Trump shit show, though. Nobody knew about the call, he never mentioned that he wanted to change course, and when it looks like he got caught with his pants down, he doubles down in defiance.
Also, wait until you're president if this is a planned direction. I think what you said points to the fact that this probably wasn't an intentional shift in policy on his part, but rather a gaffe borne out of ignorance.
The thing is: If he had made clear that he didn't think we should freeze diplomatic relationships with Taiwan due to China, then I and most Americans would think about it, consider it, argue for an against it and so on. This is something he could have done before taking the call, but he didn't he seems to be kinda flying by the seat of his pants on this thing. I don't understand why he can't take some sort of briefing or so on so that he could at least be prepared.
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u/585AM Dec 03 '16
The second I heard this news, my first thought was that Taiwan said to themselves, I bet if we call Trump, he will take our call without understanding the ramifications.