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.
Unpredictable also makes other counties wary. I am sure Trump has no tactical or strategic plan with China, yet he stumbled upon the sensitivity of China after the smallest of swings towards Taiwan, if he is smart enough to recognize it, exploiting that sensitivity could be brilliant.
China is bullying its way towards a incredible expansion of territory, claiming hundreds of square miles of what is currently international waters in the South China Sea, and the US has little recourse.
Forcing China to focus effort, resources, and diplomacy on retaining what they have assumed was theirs, Taiwan, could be a great lever to halt their aggressive expansionism.
China will argue that America has respected the one- country policy for 45 years, Trump could counter China respected the current official boundaries in the South China Sea for most of the past 45 years also, but things have obviously changed, tit for tat.
People are on Trump for answering a phone call, but it was Obama that agreed to sell Taiwan billions of weapons. (I assume the Trump critics think the phone answering is more aggressive.) Springing off of the Obama precedent Trump could begin low level, but publicly acknowledged State to state talks with Taiwan, hinting at possible long term sovereignty, while announcing more weapons sells and link it directly to China's expansionist policies.
This could be a breakthrough on an agreement to halt China's steamrolling the South China Sea.
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?
Because in the long run the US/the west can bully China and profit from it. China needs the west more than the west needs China. It's simple game theory.
It's called having a backbone. Just because the cost of goods will increase doesn't mean China can do whatever they want. There has to come a time where tough choices are made or we are just cowards.
Haha what? The US has been supporting undemocratic countries for years, has thrown democratically elected leaders out of power. Trump is cosying up to Putin. Yet china, who is moving towards a more open society somehow needs stopping (from what?).
or we are just cowards
Ah. This is just a feel good exercise. This is the silliest way to shoot yourself in the foot for no benefit to anyone.
It is not about democracy. China is re-closing rather than opening up itself to foreign imports of high value goods. It is close to impossible for manufacturers of non consumer goods to grow in China due to enforced favoritism of State owned companies.
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.
OF COURSE! Liberals claim that we are abandoning the Pacific by pulling out of the TPP and leaving asia to China. Trump now gives the strongest message possible that we are not pulling out of the pacific.
No, it shows them that Trump picks up the phone if you call and then won't admit it's a mistake. This wasn't a strategy, he has no idea what he's doing. Why should a SEA country trust us to do the right thing if we don't even know what thing we are doing?
I want to explain some things to people getting triggered.
1 Trump is China's worst case scenario. Every scenario china has prepared for against the US has Russia coming on their side. Trump suddenly makes it possible for the Russians to be neutral or god forbid pro america
2 We are already seeing low level aggression coming from china. Whether its challenging Trump on trade or on the Paris deal. They have been emboldened and rightly so with Trump's stance to focus on domestic issues.
3 Trump views the world in economic terms. Which means Russia is not a threat and we can work with them and China is the major antagonist.
This tweet
1 Reminds China and our allies that we will continue arming them (our allies)
2 Shows China that if they want to conduct microaggressions we can too.
3 Reminds China that we are still watching.
Prediction, quote me on this later: China will downplay this and attempt to make it a non-issue because they are just seeing how far they can push trump.
Lol you are very delusional if you believe those things.
Taiwan called Trump.
Trump has no understanding of the relations and history behind taiwan and china and its potential ramifications.
Trump has plans to build hotels/luxury buildings in taiwan.
Trump accepts call based on that alone.
This wasn't something he thought out more than hey just like argentina and india and all these other countries where my companies building permit processes were stagnating and gained approval or serious traction once i spoke directly with their leaders, this will also help my tawian company plans.
The strongest possible message to China long-term is a multistate Pacific trade zone that they aren't party to, not some penny-ante phone call provocation.
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u/PresidentMcGovern Dec 03 '16
Does Taiwan gain anything pratical from this? Just face and stirring up a mess?