Pretenses can matter, though. In the U.S. civil war, European governments talked but didn’t “talk” with the Confederacy, despite conducting trade, building warships for Confederate commerce raiders, and sending European military observers to embed in a few Confederate Army commands. If European countries had formally recognized and “talked” with the Confederacy, that would open the door for formal alliances and formal, above-board military assistance and intervention. Those steps would have caused the U.S. to declare war on any European country that recognized the Confederacy as a legitimate, independent government. The same dynamic exists here.
While China and Taiwan are not actively at war like the U.S./Confederacy, China has threatened to invade Taiwan should it unilaterally declare independence. If the U.S. started treated Taiwan as if it were actually, and not merely de facto, independent, then that could help push the already pro-independence president of Taiwan to do something foolishly rash like declare independence. And the U.S. would then be dragged into the ensuing military conflict.
Maybe I’m going against the grain but this is one of the boldest moves Trump has made so far. Enough of this bullshit pretending Taiwan’s still part of China, what are they gonna do about it? China’s economy entirely depends on the USA buying their crappy products and they know it.
As for Kazakhstan, Pakistan, The Philippines, etc. oh wow it’s not like we’ve never been buddy-buddy with bloody dictators before.
Ipad and iPhones are crappy products? Pretty much every vehicle made by Ford, GM and Chrysler in the US (and Tesla, BMW, Benz, etc) has Chinese parts. Yep, cheap ass shit comes out of China, but so does a piece of just about everything they make including the high end.
The foreign minister Wang Yi has dismissed it as “just a small trick” by Taiwan. i.e. Don’t put this on Trump, he’s just an idiot. This is Taiwan trying to take advantage of him.
I think we’ll soon see a lot more of this kind of response. Other countries won’t be taking the US as seriously as before. The attitude will be ‘it’s just more of Trump’s bullshit, we’ll be better off ignoring it.’
For the last fifty years or so the US has been helping Taiwan retain its de facto independence by
a) promising Taiwan you’ll go to war for them if they get invaded, and
b) saving China’s face by keeping up the admitted farce that it’s not REALLY a separate country.
Now you’ve got a president who doesn’t even keep his own promises, let alone somebody else’s. Farewell plank (a)
And if he starts in with “well we all KNOW you guys are two separate countries how about you just act like it” in a public place … there goes plank (b). Maybe China still doesn’t invade but it won’t be thanks to any action of the US’s any more
I hope to hell the Taiwanese president knows what she’s doing here, because sure as shit Trump doesn’t.
If Trump bumbles through his administration and doesn’t initiate actual aggression on China, I will consider that a success. I think Trump will do much worse when it comes to China, in other areas he has to opportunity to be an improvement, but I’m not holding my breath.
If only Bush and Obama had made this the focus of their presidencies, the world would be a more peaceful place.
Indeed. He is not happy unless he is center of attention, and he feeds off the media. This could spell disaster as he attempts to outdo himself with these theatrics over the course of his administration.
No, it doesn’t and they know they don’t whilst you are still struggling with the paradigm which played out two decades ago.
President-elect starts a trade war before taking office because he don’t understand matters of state aren’t conducted according to US bankruptcy laws? Fun times ahead.
This was basically the PRC’s response, which is a bit of a relief. (Thank God, they only think our president-elect is a bumbling idiot!)
Having an aimless blustering fool for a president will cause problems down the line, of course, but the sooner foreign powers realize that they shouldn’t expect an actual policy shift every time a marble comes rolling out of his head, the better.
The whole time Trump was running for President, those who supported him and those who opposed him all knew that when it came to foreign policy Trump didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.
I was at a party yesterday evening and saw the news alert from NYT about Trump speaking directly to the Taiwanese leader. I happened to be near a fairly well-known news media figure and opined that we’ll essentially have to rely on the leaders of our enemies or rivals to be the “adults in the room.” He felt that this was not sustainable. Lack of reaction from the other leaders would just encourage the Trump administration to behave even more recklessly. The other leaders will eventual fear looking weak, and be forced to react.
I don’t know who arranged the call, but I think such calls are customary. The ostensible reason is to congratulate the new national leader. The secondary purpose is to size up the new leader, especially in a case such as this where the new leader is an unknown factor.
Generally such calls are made with the assistance of a country expert from the State Department who will advise the president what message to convey and what the current US policy is towards that country.
Because apparently no US president has spoken to Taiwan since 1979. I suspect he didn’t know that. If he had asked the State Department for advice, they would have told him that. (And I’m sure they would have advised him even though he hasn’t taken office yet.)
The reports are that Trump spoke with John Bolton earlier in the day, who has been quite vocal about pissing off China by recognizing Taiwan:
“The new US administration could start with receiving Taiwanese diplomats officially at the State Department; upgrading the status of US representation in Taipei from a private ‘institute’ to an official diplomatic mission; inviting Taiwan’s president to travel officially to America; allowing the most senior US officials to visit Taiwan to transact government business; and ultimately restoring full diplomatic recognition.”
This would be unprecedented for the U.S. since no other country in the world has recognized Taiwan’s independence and Taiwan itself has not declared independence. Countries do not have formal diplomatic relations with provinces or sub-divisions of other sovereign countries. Even the tiny handful of countries that recognize Taiwan do so on the basis that it is the legitimate government of China, since the PRC will not have ties with any country that recognizes Taiwan. This would be no different than Russia’s recognition of the Donbass as independent of Ukraine, which the U.S. has condemned.
I am having trouble finding an updated list but I believe that the following countries still recognize the Republic of China (in Taiwan):
Burkina Faso
Swaziland
Kiribati
Marshall Islands
Nauru
Palau
Solomon Islands
Tuvalu
My wife is back visiting in Shanghai now, and I’ll get her take when China wakes up tomorrow. She hadn’t heard the news yesterday.
I’ll get an earful next week from my colleagues. Let’s just say it’s a large Taiwanese company that is a very large manufacturer in China and among other things makes very high quality consumer products exported around the world that most of you own.
Even if Xi Jinping is the adult in the room, at some point Trump probably won’t be able to help himself and will cross a line that *requires *something beyond a measured response. China is a sovereign country, probably the top 3 in terms of power and importance in the world, and will capitalize on Trump being Trump to jockey for global position and power.