Well, you have to remember Kissinger thought Nixon was a great President also. He may be working with a different definition of greatness than the rest of us.
Is it possible we can unban Pleks for one day? He was talking last week about the tremendous respect the Chinese have for Trump. I’d like to see his spin on this.
You “deride them none” yet you were calling them “backwards for 4K years” when they were on the forefront in many things until they decided that exploration was for barbarians… that would be about 3500 of those years being in the forefront.
He thinks he’s speaking facts, you see. Hence, not derision.
I have to admit I never knew China and Taiwan were considered one nation for diplomatic reasons. I remember China usually bristled if the US paid more attention to Taiwan, but I didn’t realize it carried as far as taxonomy. Is this really common knowledge?
It’s another Trump fuckup in a long and ever lengthening list of fuckups, but this time it’s because he didn’t have any diplomatic experience on a political level. He’s used to dealing with business partners regardless of country of origin or political ideology. All he did was broadcast he got a call of congratulations from the Taiwanese president. His reason for doing so was purely to promote himself, not to intentionally snub a major world power.
I’m not saying this as a shot against you, but I think any person who has even an elementary working knowledge of United States foreign policy would know about the One China policy. If Trump did not know of the existence of the One China policy before this phone call (notwithstanding his comments after the phone call about not being bound by the One China policy as laid out in the Taiwan Relations Act), I think it shows that he really doesn’t have a basic grasp of U.S. foreign policy.
As for people who generally read the newspaper, I’d say it isn’t something that everyone would know, but I certainly wouldn’t call it an obscure fact. In terms of trivia difficulty, I’d say it’s roughly in the category as the question, “Who was President during the Iran hostage crisis?”
My 3 YO child when asked about Chinese <-> US diplomacy:
Ni Hao!
He is ready, and probably ahead of Trump in the category.
And in September the Chinese snubbed President Obama at the airport.
Why do some people here think any of this (stolen UUV, insulting the US President) is attributable to Trump, or any one person for that matter, instead of China SOP? Oh, that’s right, selective memory. :rolleyes:
Roll those eyes back on up the thread and see if anyone’s posted words to that effect, old chum, and you’ll see they haven’t blamed Trump for the occurrences but cited his reactions to them.
There we go slandering him by quoting his words!
Wasn’t it Kissinger who said of Nixon: “He could have been a great man if someone had loved him”?
I thought that was an incredibly apt observation - Nixon was extremely bright, and could have done so much good, if only…
In a sense, Trump is a “WTF?” to the world leadership - he has an almost completely blank slate to begin with.
I think there is exactly .012% probability of his using this for good.
But, Kissinger is right - he COULD.
His:
appointments and his penchant for ill-advised tweets and
begging China to knock a chip off his shoulder (irony for irony generation: Nixon “opened” China; Trump is going to get it to throw out the US, if not go into a full-blown Trade/Economic War (which the US will lose, and lose big)), as well as
causing the Climate experts to think that the US Government’s climate data will be destroyed
all indicate that he will NOT be the President that he (and Nixon) could have been - he will actually be a bigger disaster than Nixon.
I kinda expect an American Kristallnacht - this time, it will be the Muslim Mosques and businesses.
International politics has to span the gap of cultural differences. Which means, effectively, that we have to relate to each other at the level of human understanding where culture hasn’t yet come into it, before we have learned to behave differently than our natural instincts. Which is to say, as children.
This is why we “posturing” is an important element of international politics. It’s why Putin can send troops into the Ukraine and then simply deny that they’re Russian, and that leaves us with no ability to respond.
Someone who understands the 8 year old mentality well, will probably have an advantage in foreign relations, because everything gets accomplished at the 8 year old level in that domain.
Trump may well do excellently, if he applies himself to it. However, outside of tackling the problem of China, I think that we can expect Trump to mostly concern himself with domestic issues, and thus squandor the one talent he might have for the job.
I did hear a term in China used to describe the upbringing of many of the male sons born under the one child policy: “spoiled little emporors”.
We have a spoiled, little-fingered, orange asshat of our own.
Am I the only one who thinks that this statement is for internal consumption and intended to excuse Trump rather than for American consumption to insult him?
My take would be that it means “don’t make a big deal about what Trump said, it’s just that he’s learning the ropes”. Because otherwise the Chinese government would have to act mightily offended and since they don’t want to, they need to give their population a good reason why. “That’s just the random babbling of an ignorant, nothing to be bothered about” seems fitting.
Absolutely. Beijing is probably more interested in having their own turn at manipulating Trump to their advantage then they are in confronting him.
:rolleyes: Yeah, no blaming going on in this thread. I guess, by extension, Obama is a social pariah - it’s the only reason China would completely snub him on his arrival.
Get a grip on history, folks, this is how many communist countries, including China, act - bluster to make their leaders seem better in comparison. clairobscur indicated, it’s meant for internal consumption more than external. I’m no fan of Trump, but blaming him for every silly little thing takes the focus away from the stuff that matters.
Hi. Could you expand on this a little? Some examples… some specifics… just so we can understand the thought processes that led to this conclusion.
I’m trying to understand what you are saying… and if I know what facts you’re basing your conclusions on, it will help.
Thanks!