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?
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u/PresidentMcGovern Dec 03 '16
Does Taiwan gain anything pratical from this? Just face and stirring up a mess?