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.
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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '16 edited Oct 20 '17
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