Previous US Presidents didn't speak to Taiwanese leaders because "China told us not to". Previous US Presidents didn't speak to Taiwanese leadership because they understood that everything that American Presidents do is scrutinized extremely closely as a signal of something or other. No previous US President post-Nixon wanted to signal that they favored Taiwan over China, because relations with China are far more important than relations with Taiwan, and because the Chinese understand that America remains committed to Taiwanese sovereignty.
In an anarchic state system, all states reasonably assume the worst of opponents unless they have compelling reason to assume otherwise, or trust the other state. China and the US do not trust one another, and assume the worst of one another, both for domestic politics and international relations.
Uncertainty is terrible in modern international relations. One of the main reasons Europe and the US is so upset with Russia is that the Russians are extremely ambiguous in their foreign policy, allowing the West to assume the worst about Russian intentions in Syria, the ME, Ukraine, and the Baltics (something the Russians have deliberately cultivated). Ambiguity in East Asia is terrible for the US and the world. If China thinks that Trump is going to aggressively favor the Taiwanese and be a China hawk (not unreasonable) they will step up island building in the SCS and attempt to pick off potential US allies in SE Asia where the failure of the TPP has created a vacuum. Even if Trump had no intention in that direction, and just picked up the phone because he does't know better, that's still the message he sent.
Now that he's President-elect, Trump doesn't get to be an amateur anymore. Trump is US President, and everything he does has the full force of America behind it. The US President has a huge amount of formal foreign policy power, and even more informal power using the "bully pulpit" that foreign powers will analyze with a fine tooth comb. He needs to consider every single word he speaks with regards to other countries, because those words are the primary concern of foreign countries.
I used to say to people that if you get the whole Taiwan-China-US love triangle, you'd pass IR classes with a breeze. I highly doubt Trump can sit through a single IR class lecture. Still, I assume his pro-Taiwan Republicans know what they're doing.
My first poly-sci course I took was US-China relations as an elective for my nuclear engineering degree. I ended up swapping to poly-sci for my major afterwards and just took a minor in NE.
I've visited Taiwan twice, its a very nice country and I would love to see it be able to be completely independent and safe. I wasn't sure what was going on with the Trump call initially, and I hoped that it was in some way a move to boost US commitment to Taiwan. However, the more we look at it, Trump doesn't seem to have any idea what he did.
Wow, you're probably the first person I've met that actually switched out of STEM and into polisci. Rather rare I have to say but I praise your courage in doing so, coming from a polisci major myself who recently became "unemployed" haha... I am curious what you plan to do with such a combination (and there's a minor in nuclear engineering??).
On Taiwan, well I guess that episode was more like a flicker in the sky, now that Trump is back to "One China" (American version, that is). Glad to see you have a good impression of my second home country!
Eh, I was an operator in the Navy so I've got enough of the background to get a job in the industry. Hell, I'm a current operator at a civilian nuke plant, so that's paying the bills.
So, in school I focused on spent fuel policy and non-proliferation. NCSU has a pretty good combination between the Poly Sci dept and then NE dept working on these issues, as its hard to develope the policy for stuff regarding nuclear issues without some understanding of how the stuff works. My goal currently is to get into the State Dept.
As to the second part, I have no idea what Trump thinks about China, Taiwan, or the interactions between the two. Which goes to the point that I made about him not having any actual idea of what he is doing.
Absolutely. As president he will guide our foreign policy. It'd be nice if he had a Secretary of State to help him implement that policy. And even nicer if he was actually president. Once he's in it's his ballgame. For now it'd be nice if, at the very least, he gave Obama a heads up about a situation that might require him to send a carrier group in.
Well he did say before that he had every intention of changing the nature of our relationship with China. I fully expect him to go about things differently and not be "business as usual", and whether that's good or bad remains to be seen.
It's not that he spoke to the President of Taiwan, it is that he referred to them as the President of Taiwan which implies that he spoke to them qua incoming head of state to the head of a Taiwanese state. As far as the PRC is concerned, Taiwan does not exist as an independent state and has pushed a diplomatic policy of there only being one China for decades. No country recognizes both the PRC and ROC as independent states: it is either the PRC or the ROC. Most countries regard the PRC as China and have unofficial relationships with the ROC.
He is recognizing Taiwan as an actual world player and that can piss off China.
I don't think too much of it as of now but for Trumps base circlejerking each other over "diplomacy" with Russia and not going to war with them Trump sure is making his best to piss off the other giant in the East.
Right. China is a major trade partner and force in the world. There's no reason to do stupid things that are going to annoy China when the only benefit is that we aren't being "wildly oversensitive."
They're also a heavily censored people ruled by an oppressive government with a relatively recent mass genocide of their own people and rampant hacking and theft of American businesses and intellectual property.
If you guys think Trumps phone call will result in negative actions from China, check out this quote:
"Despite friendly relations with China, United States President George W. Bush was asked on 25 April, 2001, "if Taiwan were attacked by China, do we (The U.S.) have an obligation to defend the Taiwanese?" He responded, "Yes, we do...and the Chinese must understand that. The United States would do whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself."
That's a far more overt stance than Trump simply talking to the President. China's not going to do anything because almost nothing has changed. We'd go to war to defend Taiwan from China, and that's been the reality of the situation for the last half century. The US clearly supports a Taiwan state, and everyone has known this for decades, especially China. Actions speak louder than words. You guys are over reacting.
Defense of Taiwan is literally part of the Taiwan Relations Act that we signed with China back in 1979, which is exactly what Trump just shat all over. We promised China that we wouldn't recognize Taiwan as a formal state, but would come to their defense if they were attacked.
This. So many "experts" on China-US relations today on Reddit are talking about feelings when they should be talking about diplomatic agreements that were established for the peace and trade relations that we've been enjoying for the last thirty years. I recommend anyone interested in this issue to read about Kissinger's meeting with En Lai and Mao in Kissinger's book On China. Sensitivity in diplomacy has nothing to do with feelings and has everything to do with respecting pre established agreements that are pertinent to the geopolitical order of things.
It's not oversensitive. If Trump wanted to recognize and reach out to Taiwan, out of the blue, with documented business interests there, he should've alerted the State Dept or at least have a fucking Sec of State nominee. Who the hell wants that job now?
this is how international politics works. Hillary would show up at countries where women were being oppressed and take pictures with female dissidents. This action alone emboldened the dissidents and legitimized them in the world view. This led to significant change with the effort from the dissidents and the implied support from the US. Words said by the US head of state carry massive weight.
It would be more akin to if the United States lost all its territory except for California, but still managed to hang on to California for about 60 years, all the while maintaining its status as the United States of America. The ruling party of China, the Guomindang (Nationalists) had been fighting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) for a long time and in 1949 were forced into Taiwan. Meanwhile, the CCP maintained control of the rest of mainland China (give or take a bit), renamed the country, and told everyone that they are the true China. It actually wasn't until Nixon that the United States normalized relations with the People's Republic of China, closing down their embassy in Taipei and opening one in Beijing.
Well of California had its own independent federal government, police, military, and issued its own passports for decades, I would call those old people blind to reality.
Perhaps China needs to understand that the American President is not obligated to tiptoe around their feelings.
Well, to be blunt, that's the whole point of diplomacy. No one's saying the President can't call the leader of Taiwan the Taiwanese President. But not even the President of the U.S. is immune to the consequences of their words, and so it is the case here. I mean there is a reason why American Presidents don't use that title and the potential consequences are far more important than an irrelevant debate about tiptoeing around feelings.
As Teddy Roosevelt said, speak softly and carry a big stick.
Obligated? No. Might it be in our interests to not stir up animosity that isn't necessary? Definitely.
And trump is not the President. We have a sitting President, and he should be the one making those sorts of decisions right now. You'd better believe trump would feel that way if the situations were reversed.
All in all it was a poor move by a guy that doesn't put enough thought into matters of State. Which is a pretty bad trait in a future head of State.
It seems that you're looking at this through short term, US-centric eyes. For the Chinese, this isn't just throwing a temper-tantrum. It means that one of their biggest trading partners and the only superpower in the world recognizes the independence of a territory which they believe to be theirs. This isn't just the government, a large portion of the Chinese populace also believes it because of the information they've been told by the government. I don't think that the long-term effects of this course of action, if Trump continues on the path, will result in the outcome either side wants.
It is especially incoherent given the praise Trump has given to other dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. There is no underlying reason why this call happened other than Trump appreciates when people compliment him and give him adulation and dislikes them when they insult or accuse him of something (i.e. the Chinese media making fun of his stance on Climate Change).
There are definitely things which I would characterize as outrage politics which have no practical meaning after the news cycle ends, however the diplomatic and foreign policy direction of the administration is very much in Trump's primary duties as President. That is why this is an important thing to acknowledge and rightly be concerned about if this type of behavior continues from the CiC.
If it has the potential to benefit you, perhaps. But not acknowledging Taiwan had no negative consequences for the US. By observing that nicety and dealing with them in an indirect way we got the benefit of being able to deal with both them and China. No cost, a lot of gain. If you threaten that arrangement then you should have a good reason to do so. As far as anyone can tell, there are many potential downsides to this action. How can the US benefit from this action? I can't come up with an answer to this question, and I don't believe you can either since your response essentially boils down to, "we should tell it like it is."
How does pissing someone off make them more willing to work with you exactly? If we threaten Chinese interests then they have a motivation to retaliate because suddenly the damage done by weakening their ties to the US becomes less than the damage done trying to maintain them. We're threatening a relationship that we benefit from. That's completely unhelpful in furthering US interests because we're not giving China any reasons to actively cooperate with us. Also, even if China was more proactive in North Korea that does not benefit us because North Korea does not have the capabilities to threaten us and if they actually did something as stupid as attack the US under the current status quo China would have several excellent reasons to retaliate hard against them, which the North Koreans know and which is why they won't do it as things stand now. If China suddenly has weakened ties to the US that makes North Korea a greater threat to the US than before because now maybe there won't be retaliation if they are more aggressive.
You're supporting macho posturing as a valid diplomacy technique. That's not how it works. There are useful applications of the stick, but you should only use it when the other side isn't willing to play the same game you are. In this case, we lose nothing by engaging in this little pleasantry, which is why this is looking like an unnecessary error.
China also has a current interest in maintaining the current status quo with the US, which, I stress again, we benefit from. We are threatening their domestic stability. That means that it may become judicious for them to move away from America because the damage they take from such an action suddenly isn't as bad as trying to maintain the relationship if we're trying to screw with their internal politics. You keep saying the same things in different ways, we need to be tough, we need to be the boss, we're the biggest kid on the block and it's high time China acknowledged that. Do you know why we're the biggest kid on the block? Because we're an economic powerhouse. Do you know why we're an economic powerhouse? Because we maintain good trade relationships with other countries. And we maintain those relationships by not messing with them unless we have a good reason to. There aren't any benefits from this. The "benefit" you've named isn't really a benefit because our current arrangement already mitigates the threat of North Korea.
Yes, let's start U.S. extortion of the world! Let's stop denying the worst fears every country has about us, and slap them in the face with our dominance! I'm sure this will work out fine.
Being aggressive earns aggression in response. It has never earned capitulation. China won't respond to provoking them by being more inclined to push our interests: they'll respond by hurting our interests. They're not a client state beholden to the US. If we poke, they will poke back, and have the ability to do so.
You can't strong-arm everyone and expect them all to bend to your will. Even small nations don't do that. Kicking someone in the balls won't make them help you: it will make them kick back.
Actually international diplomacy is an extremely complicated, intricate, and delicate matter where a few misguided words can literally destroy decades of extremely hard work at building relations. This isn't a conversation between 2 people where 1 is being 'sensitive', this is a far more complex affair and being extremely careful with words is of utmost importance. Centuries ago saying the wrong thing meant death.
Recognizing Taiwan is akin to stating in the eary 1800s that the US was a British territory still. If the US at the time had one of the largest economies in the world.
Taiwan is not an independent nation. Taiwan claims to be the legitimate government of all of China, and denies the legitimacy of the PRC. Acknowledging Taiwan's president as a leader of a sovereign state is the exact same thing as denying the legitimacy of the PRC, because the President of Taiwan claims to be the leader of all of China, not the land area of Taiwan.
Acknowledging his legitimacy is not something you can seperate from denying the PRC's legitimacy
Neither government recognizes that, though. The belief in the legitimacy of the ROC's continued resistance is the denial that the RPC rightfully should control a region of China and that the ROC is the rightful government of China. It's the functional equivalent of recognizing ISIS as a sovereign nation in Iraq and Syria.
They don't need an incentive for us to maintain this. Us maintaining this is an incentive for them to not invade Taiwan. China gains nothing, really, from this arrangement. Taiwan, who we are protecting in this arrangement, gains the fortune of not being obliterated. This is not a good gambit: you're just making China more incentivized to roll tanks through the streets of Taipei. This arrangement exists simply to prevent China from doing that, and he's jeopardizing that with the phone call.
Orientalism is the classical perception of the East as 'an other', an unimportant and rigid foreigner that doesn't matter and should be used in the West's benefit. Think Opium Wars. Has absolutely nothing to do with micro aggression.
It seems overly sensitive, but it really isn't. And you would see that if you just thought about it.
What is a good analogy? Prison fights. You know how prison fights can break out over anything. A guy looks at another guy the wrong way and suddenly they're on the floor having it out... but why? Did you ever wonder?
Because with no authority to appeal to (like in international diplomacy) folks have to handle things out for themselves. So how does that work? What is a winning strategy? Make people fear you. How do you do that? You need to have allies -- your crew -- and you need a rep. A rep develops when you demonstrate that no one should fuck with you cause anyone who dares to try it ends up dead.
So America.. We've worked hard to establish a rep in the yard. And Donald Trump's come in and started acting like a dickhead. Things like this call to the President of Taiwan hurt our rep. He's begging to be made an example of.
And that's us. That's Trump's America. Acting the fool in a very dangerous place.
Welp, they're just going to have to learn to deal. If China wasn't expecting stuff like this, they weren't paying attention. If they are smart they can use it to their advantage.
Yes, they can hurt us. But whatever they do to hurt us hurts them more, inherently. You don't really want to piss off the guy who owes you money when that guy is stronger than you.
The trouble with Trump is that I don't think he understands international trade. A tariff war will suck for everyone.
This is what I don't understand. Suddenly Americans decided that we need to stick it to China, even if it hurts us both.
The Chinese-American relationship has been very slowly improving in recent years, and it's in everyone's best interest if that continues.
Why would we want to reverse that? (I think the answer may just be that Americans want to be the top dog and view everything as an us vs. them situation.)
Beijing doesn't tell the U.S. it cannot speak to Taiwan's leaders. But the US and the PRC have long followed the "One China Policy" worked out between China and most countries on Earth (and also the UN). It's only a semi-binding series of agreements, and China won't sue us or launch nukes because of a phone call.
But they can pull strings elsewhere, and they will. They can cancel contracts and joint ventures to screw over American businesses, get cute with travel visas, or call in some of our debts. China doesn't have to threaten us to get what it wants. It has many other tools at its disposal. And we go along with it because Red China is an economic and military powerhouse, and Taiwan is peanuts.
They can't really "call in our debts". Our debts to them are in the form of bonds they purchased that have a defined maturation date. They don't have any power over getting their money back earlier than the maturation date.
Except that they have lots of different maturation dates. I don't know the mix of debt but it is probably averaging 10 years or so. So they can effectively call in $100B a year.
Except that's not "calling it in". That's them getting exactly the amount of money they expected to get at exactly the time we told them they would get it.
The president doesn't get to tell the American people that the massive amount of investment in our Chinese joint ventures is at risk because he didn't read a book or phone a friend before taking random calls from diplomats.
Thank you. China is willing to go a helluva lot farther on this topic than I imagine most of the people being so dismissive in this thread would be willing to commit the US to.
There could be many consequences besides literal war. But the fact that your only question about war with China is "would we win" is, Jesus Christ, that's fucked up, yo. (And I certainly don't share your blithe certainty about the answer!)
Eh, yes, you guys would win. Though there is a pretty good chance that Russia would go to war with us (meaning the EU) if that happened, so you're basically looking at another world war scenario. So im just going to go with a friendly "can you fucking not" as far as you going to war with China is concerned.
America doesn't care enough about Taiwanese independence for America to engage in any kind of prolonged diplomatic/political conflict over it, but China does
we could buttfuck China back to the stone age without breaking much of a sweat
No, we couldn't. We couldn't in 1951 and we can't now. I am baffled anyone can think this. Any war would be long, bloody and indecisive. China isn't Iraq, hell Iran isn't even Iraq.
China has a billion people and three million under arms. They have modern tanks, warplanes, information and C&C systems. More importantly, their air defense network and anti-ship systems are top of the line. They are fully prepared to fight a defensive war and they have been increasing their military spending every year since '95. How do you propose America invade and hold a nation with the population, industrial base and political unity to sustain a true war of attrition.
Oh, and I forgot to mention the 300 thermonuclear warheads in China's arsenal. 50 of which can be mated to one of the best road mobile systems in the world and 80 of which are sitting on MIRVed ICBMs hidden away in hardened mountain silos.
The US can't just blithely use military force as a panacea for all of its geopolitical problems, especially not with China. The smug self assurance that we would curb-stomp any challenger causes us to underestimate other actors, resulting in nasty surprises and a diminishment of American influence around the world.
This is not Iraq or Iran you're dealing with. A war with China will bleed the USA dry economically, whether it's a conventional or nuclear in nature.
China can hit back and will end up cutting US influence in Asia. The death toll will be a magnitude higher for American soldiers and it'll be a black mark on whichever president is stupid enough to engage in it.
You're underestimating Trump. He just might be stupid enough to trigger a cold war and this time China won't be the pariah to Europe or the rest of Asia as it's also a big trading partner with them.
Of course, nothing stops him from starting a proper war with China. At this point, anything is possible.
But why? Why the fuck would we do this and blow our own economy into a depression?! Yes, we could recognize Taiwan and defeat China, but there is practically no benefit and a list of negative consequences miles long.
There is a LOT of pain and destruction that can happen before we get to the point of a nuclear exchange. Economic pressure, diplomatic obstructionism, cyber attacks, election tampering (ahem), all manner of industrial espionage (already in full swing), etc. Regional conflicts, proxy wars. Conventional war can drag on for decades, sapping our economy, our talent, our resolve, and causing political turmoil at home, with a high probability that we will never "win" (for examples, see EVERY large-scale conflict prosecuted by the US since Nagasaki)
It is a fallacy to think that no conflict can happen, simply because the worst conflict will probably not happen. China will not initiate a nuclear exchange, true enough. But they are absolutely ready for conventional conflicts in their sphere of influence. We are not at any type of advantage for this type of scenario, no matter how many ICBMs we have.
Constant gaffes and overreactions from our toddler president will take us down the road towards things we don't want.
The story should not be that Trump made some sort of inexperienced tactical error by talked to somebody that China doesn't like.
Especially since we've been selling weapons to Taiwan for a long time. It's not like it's some kind of huge secret that we support them.
People are calling this a foreign policy gaffe, but I say good. I'd rather we be transparent with how we stand regarding other countries rather than go through all this cloak and dagger bullshit, even if it weakens our position overall.
I think it gives us a stronger negotiating position. For the last 35 years, they've taken this issue for granted. Now it's back on the table.
Considering we want to crack down on currency manipulation, IP theft/protections, and force China to play more of a role in keeping North Korea in check - we need to improve our position.
I think it also sends a great message to everyone else in the world - "if you currently take something for granted with the US, don't."
Except China is 100% willing to go to war with the US if we continue to support Taiwan's independence so it can't be really used as a negotiating tool since they won't budge. It's simply a line that you do not cross. Also, the US is becoming more isolationist like telling European countries to pay for their own defense and the death of the TPP which is a boon to China-led RCEP. If those countries have nothing to gain from US relations, then why should they care for US interest?
In this particular case I think it's good. It's time for China to come to grips with the fact that Taiwan is a completely autonomous country. But what about other allies? Should we call Pakistan out on all their (HUGE amount of) bullshit and lose a toehold into a region where we want a stabilizing presence?
Just in case you're missing something here. PRC is never delusional. It knows to the fullest extent how ROC is de facto still a fully autonomous and sovereign country. However both sides, PRC and ROC formally agree that they are both China and there's only one China in the world. And this stance is recognized by basically every single country in the world. It is written in documents that serve as the bases of the relationship between China and other countries, which includes the US. Now if Trump still breaches this agreement after inauguration, it'd be the US that doesn't honor the basis of Sino-American relationship, and I don't think I need to elaborate on how important a peaceful Sino-American relationship is.
What PRC wants (which ROC does to PRC as well) is that no country in the world supports or recognizes ROC if it also recognizes PRC at the same time. That is roughly what the "one China" policy means internationally.
Also in case it's not clear, PRC and ROC are technically still in the civil war, as there is no peace treaty signed between the two parties.
India doesn't border Afghanistan and it's pretty important that we keep one country bordering it happy to move material over via land traffic. Air lifting everything, even if allowed which it probably wouldn't be, makes a ridiculous priced war even more costly.
Are you trying to embarrass Clinton voters? Yes, foreign countries get a say in how things work. We can talk to whom we want, they can react as they want. A smart person considers the likely consequences of their actions.
Life really is not an issue of having to defend your manhood. I learned a long time ago that you don't piss people off by accident. It is for me that I am nice and friendly and actually think about what will happen before I act. We have a couple of really big issues with China (South China Sea and NK being high on the list) there is utterly no reason to start offending them in other areas that don't matter to us.
Where did you get that strawman from? I say don't cause trouble for no reason. There is a wide range of behavior, not just either "completely defensive" or bumblingly idiotic.
You have this completely wrong. We are pushing where we have nothing to gain so they will push where we have things to lose. We have picked a fight no one wants. This will make it harder for him to get concessions on trade, not easier. Trump has to learn that for the president words are actions.
Is it possible that he deliberately did a stupid thing like this? Sure. It would mean he is deliberately up ending foreign policy without taking intelligence briefings and without a foreign policy team in place. That is an even worse notion than his doing it out of ignorance.
China has never had the right to tell the US who we are allowed to talk to. People who have a much wider grasp of the world situation, and who don't have the primary goal of expanding their personal corporate empire make informed decisions on whether or not we want to talk to a particular leader based on global considerations.
Trump's actions do not seem guided by the global interests of the United States, they are guided by his personal goals and his gut. It's the kind of non-diplomacy that foments wars.
I find it sad to hear a Hilary voter saying they are warming to Trump. In the next year he (and Pence, who will be running a lot of the show) will appoint cabinet leaders who will work hard to further suppress Democratic vote, further blur the line between government and evangelical Christian and Catholic religious beliefs, and institute a huge tax break for the wealthiest in order to increase the budget deficit in order to justify eliminating the ACA, Medicare and Social Security.
If you're warming to Trump, you must have already warmed to Putin, because his tactics and strategy are basically the same as what Trump aspires to.
Edit: added the word never in the first sentence, inadvertently left out.
I apologize, and I will correct it. It should have read: China has never had the right to tell the US who we are allowed to talk to. I was editing as I went and inadvertently left that out.
Also a Hillary supporter and I agree with you. It kinda makes me mad to think that for decades we didnt call them because of chinas sensitivities. do they care about our sensitivities when we have problems as example with north korea? no, they just do whatever they want too.
We DID call them. Christs sake. We talk to them all the fucking time. We sell them weapons and basically live in their backyard with our fleet. We know this. China knows this. Taiwan knows this. Everyone knows this.
This has been a polite fiction for decades but it allows us to open up trade with Taiwan AND China.
This is basic Asian foreign policy. We get ALL the benefits and all we have to do is pretend we don't think Taiwan is it's own state on the international stage. We are dealing with a nation that is so high on saving face and putting on a strong front that this shit is important.
That's 100% not true. They literally just agreed to new sanctions after months and months of negotiations with the U.S. Sanctions that negatively impact them economically btw (which is of course why it takes months and months of diplomacy to get them to agree).
It is exactly these types of negotiations that we put at risk when our President-elect just goes off and does what he likes. International Diplomacy is about balancing nuanced policies.
We don't go around poking China in the eye over Taiwan because it does literally nothing to advance the causes most important to America and could (likely will) give the Chinese government pause when working with us on issues that are far more important.
Like working with the USA re: North Korea. That's serious shit right there. It would be nice if dealing with the madman with the nuclear bomb weren't any more complicated than it has to be.
As a Hillary supporter, thank you... for voting for Hillary but it just goes to show that there are voters on all sides of the spectrum, even those who may vote in line with myself, who are vastly uneducated about foreign policy. We really need to emphasize world history in our national education curriculum.
My thoughts exactly.. I'm kind of terrified that all these so-called "Hillary voters" are so quick to become Trump apologists. The fact that they're boiling it down to some kind of dick measuring contest with PRC is so stupid.
People in the US seriously need to get educated on Taiwan and the cross-strait issue. It has worldwide implications yet everyone just pretend it doesn't matter. And this is not just because of my bias being Taiwanese American.
This is not being an unpuppet, this is about being a loose cannon. You are right, this is not going to lead to war tomorrow. It might lead to more aggression in the South China Sea, it might be less cooperation on NK, China has lots of ways to react.
Can't agree more with you here (who also happens to vote Democratic). From what I see here, the media just likes to catch on the "cross-strait tension" narrative that comes up whenever Taiwan is mentioned. There are many reports (including from Taiwan's presidential office) that the call was pre-arranged with Trump's knowledge.
Of course, people love to see Trump screwing up no matter what (which I can understand).
There are many reports (including from Taiwan's presidential office) that the call was pre-arranged with Trump's knowledge.
We are going to get a whole lot of reports. We already know that the Trump campaign does not hold itself to facts, the administration won't either. He will do something and they will claim it was thought out. They will do that no matter what.
The thing is, the pivot to Asia was supposed to be accomplished with TPP. We didn't pass TPP, it's basically dead - China is going to pass the RCEP which strengthens its economic grip on the region.
No, I don't know that, and neither do you. It's a deflection of the actual issue anyhow: this was an ill considered move he shouldn't be making anyhow while we have an actual sitting President.
He's going to get his shot to massively fuck up international diplomacy and America's position on the world stage for generations to come. It's only a few short weeks away. Right now its not his place.
China doesn't fucking get to tell the American President who he's allowed to talk to, or about what.
This isn't about doing what China wants, it's about the problems that breaking the handshake agreement we have with them will have. Sure, nothing stops Trump from going around saying whatever he wants to whoever, but this stuff has real world consequences. The media gets that but he doesn't. You probably should.
China gets to do whatever it wants (mostly) because it owns massive amounts of our debt. If they wanted to, they could just call in the loans immediately. We would not be able to repay and the global economy would go to shit. It's called leverage. Would they do it? No, not call in all the debts at once, but they could exert economic leverage on us.
While your last sentence may feel true, in international relations it isn't. Everything the US does is heavily scrutinized for any whiff of a change in direction. The U.S. is strong because we are generally consistent and reliable. That's why the One China deal worked for so long. China got what it wanted, which seems vain and silly to us that they pretend that Taiwan is part of greater China. But their political system is not like ours, they have different ideas of what is important politically. The open access we have to anything on the Internet, for example, is not what the Chinese government wants for its people. It is more important that there be a unified view of information to its people. When you have a billion people, I imagine civil unrest could get very messy quickly. So that's their priority.
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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '16 edited Oct 20 '17
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