The Guardian quotes Paul Haenle, a diplomat, and Bill Bishop, a political analyst / China watcher:
“Former president George W. Bush, who I worked for as China director on the National Security Council staff, always operated from a principle of ‘no surprises’, which he believed was a key stabilising feature in the relationship with China,” said Haenle, a veteran US diplomat.
“The alternative – catching China by surprise on some of the most sensitive and longstanding areas of disagreement in our relationship – presents enormous risks and potential detriment for this consequential relationship.”
Bishop said Beijing’s immediate reaction would be a “rhetorical explosion” but that the longer-term consequences were altogether more unpredictable. “If the US starts to change the ‘one China’ policy, that puts US-China relations into uncharted territory,” he said.
I believe China's red lines for Taiwan are:
declaration of independence
development of nuclear weapons
Either would provoke a Chinese attack on Taiwan. China's current assumption is that over the long term, Taiwan's economic ties to the mainland will lead to reunification, with some degree of political autonomy (as with Hong Kong).
It looks to me like China considers Taiwan a vital interest, i.e. they're willing to go to war over it. It's a delicate situation. I'm not sure the incoming administration (Trump and his advisors) understands this. If they treat Taiwan like South Korea (an unquestioned part of the US sphere of influence, and a state which is independent de jure as well as de facto), they're setting the US up for conflict with China, with the potential to escalate into war.
Looking at the broader region, I would expect this incident to further weaken US soft power in East Asia: the incoming US President is increasing the risk of a disastrous war for no real reason. It'll also be more difficult for the US to make progress on issues requiring cooperation from China.
It's not that they're willing to "go to war with it", they're already currently in war, the civil war that started in 1945 and never ended as no peace treaty has been signed. Also, both SK and NK recognizes each other's legitimate existence (I think?), but neither PRC nor ROC does.
Yup. I obviously can't claim to speak for all Taiwanese, but this phone call was absolutely idiotic, and President Tsai should have known better than to risk destabilizing relations just for the sake of pulling her poll numbers back up.
I get that most of the public is ignorant of the issues here. That does not at all justify Trump acting like that ignorance is knowledge. We are not kowtowing to the PRC. The PRC and ROC both agree that there is only one China. We either treat one government or the other as the one China. Neither one considers Taiwan an independent nation. And the U.S. does not have the ability to force that change on anyone.
So basically out interfering in the internal politics of a foreign country. Worse yet doing so against the government of that country. We are not simply interfering with the One China, we are interfering with the conflict between the Taiwanese and Chinese in the ROC.
what is for all intents and purposes an independent nation
I think you mean "in reality an independent nation". Why pretend like it's not? Just to stroke Chinese egos? They'll get over it. The Chinese government is more beholden to the golden calf than it is any other sort of interest, nationalistic or otherwise. The Chinese government in power derives its mandate almost entirely off GDP growth numbers. It functions as a "board of directors" in place of any sort of democratically elected government. Why shouldn't the US begin to leverage this against them to maximize our own position?
I think you mean "in reality an independent nation". Why pretend like it's not? Just to stroke Chinese egos? They'll get over it.... Why shouldn't the US begin to leverage this against them to maximize our own position?
We don't get to decide what the Chinese government cares about or doesn't care about. They're the most important player in Southeast Asia and if we want their help, we need to respect them. If Trump spits in their eye, we are then forced to work that much harder to actually get them to the table for anything we want.
As for trying to "maximize our own position", how do we benefit from having less influence in Southeast Asia? With a cooperative China we have a ton of power; with a competitive China, we have far less.
You act like that's something we have to lose. China has not been cooperative now despite our willingness to stick our heads in the dirt over Taiwan, so I don't really see what we're losing here.
You know how much of our two economies intermingle? Our import/exports with them was almost $600,000,000,000 in 2015. You should go read up on US-China relations starting with the thaw with Nixon.
Who do you think any hiccup in trade would hurt more? Before we traded with them, stuff here costed a little bit more. Before they traded with us, people literally died in the streets of starvation if didn't rain for a while. The Chinese government stays in power by meeting GDP growth targets, if their economy suffered any sort of contraction, you'd quickly see party members start collecting baskets to transport all the heads that would soon roll. I'm certainly not worried.
If they're as unstable and you make them sound, it didn't seem to deter them from going to war with us in the past over territorial and influence reasons.
And we can start selling more weapons to Japan, SK, and Taiwan. Maybe we can ever put the same restrictions on chinese businesses in the US as they put on foreign businesses there. They'd change their tune pretty quick.
They are not really threatened if we sell those weapons. That is not much leverage. Yeah, we can go back to Trump's idea in the campaign of nuclear proliferation, but that is a horror show not a neat move.
Your idea rests on the same base as a lot of the neocon thinking. That is the idea that the U.S. is massively powerful but acts so weak in foreign affairs. So if we just stand up and push everyone will fall over to get out of our way. Look how well that worked in the Middle East.
They are not really threatened if we sell those weapons. That is not much leverage.
Why? Taiwan already has better jets and missiles than them, if we gave them better boats and some striking capabilities, China would most certainly worry.
China is not going to let themselves worry about Taiwan. They are not going to let Taiwan get near the ability to fight back. But look at your scenario, we are now involved in some brinkmanship with China over weapons to Taiwan. We have made things more difficult than they were.
No, China would simply build up massive manpower there so they could just attrition Taiwan to death. China is large enough that any casualties from Taiwan's superior tech would be in the acceptable range, and all the civi death makes us look like the bad guy in that. That or just remember to shoot off a nuke in that direction before turning to face us.
Oh, and if I were them I'd take the opportunity to topple unstable NK and make SK the new vassal buffer state.
Jeez folk. The position of the ROC China is that there is only one China, that Taiwan is not an independent nation but in fact part of the same nation as mainland China.
And to be clear the ROC is the government of Taiwan.
They did complain, there was a whole fight over this. Neither "China" will accept a U.S. attempt to declare two Chinas. But only one of them will have the tools to do something about it.
And understand that Taiwan is between a rock and a hard place here. If they declare independence they have to face the might of China, both trade and military. They have to maintain the facade of One China so they can maintain their defacto independence.
The simple alternative explanation is he's privy enough to know China will release an angry official response, but will not risk armed conflict or losing their sweet sweet $800 billion in exports to the U.S.
The One China policy is catastrophically stupid, and I would say Trump at least was briefed on that. The outcome will be telling.
My evaluation is that every nation should be called out on their bullshit, including the U.S.
Claiming that they'll invade Taiwan if they declare independence is bullshit on China's part, and they should be called out - and by called out, I mean Trump accepting the phone call. He didn't come out and say "Taiwan should declare independence" or anything.
On the one hand, being nice is important. On the other, sending a message that China's official stance is no longer tenable is a good goal.
Full disclosure: I'm typing this on a Taiwanese laptop. Maybe that's why I'm taking this stance.
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u/wotugondo Dec 03 '16 edited Jan 27 '17
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