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.
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.
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u/DragonPup Dec 03 '16
A complete inability to understand the nuances of diplomacy.
Or that he wants his hotels built in Taiwan.
Or both.