I’m gonna go out on a limb here and state that China has already factored in Trumps boorish behaviour and has decided to play the long game and just wait it out for the next four years.
??? For respect, read condescension.
I tend to agree. If Trump gets Congress to slap some heavy tariffs on Chinese goods, that will piss them off. As it should. A diplomatic faux pas is more of something to snicker at.
And it looks like he is determined to prove it.
Or they’re making plans for how they’re going to manipulate Trump.
Same list
bwahahahaha.China is going to exploit and play the Trumpster for all they can to maximize their advantage and the US disadvantage. No way are they passing up this golden opportunity to take advantage of a total political and authoritarian noob.
Whenever the issue of China vs. Taiwan, or China’s claim to the South China Sea, or China’s human-rights record, or the Dalai Lama or Falun Gong or other such behavior comes up, there will always inevitably be some Western observers who will say, “China has [huge military][nuclear weapons][is America’s largest trading partner][holds $1.3 trillion of US debt][insert military/economic/political power], therefore they should not be confronted and their demands should be acceded to.”
It is, at its core, a might-makes-right argument.
What’s more interesting is that many of these folks are the same people who argue forcefully against the 1%, or the elites, or Fortune 500 corporations, Wall Street, or the privileged, etc. in society- they argue for the little guy against the Big Guy. But somehow when it comes to international politics, they go by an entirely opposite set of rules. Suddenly power. wealth, and the ability to inflict coercion means that a country like China is to be respected and deferred to. They support the Big Guy against the little guy.
Perhaps the US should change its policy with regard to Taiwan. But that doesn’t mean it should occur just because the president-elect didn’t know the current situation. Surely such a change in policy should be discussed, debated and decided upon?
Might doesn’t make right. But you’re an idiot if you ignore might when it exists.
This is one reason I worry about Trump as President. I don’t feel he’s aware he’s operating at a much higher level than he ever has before. China isn’t a corporation; it’s a global superpower. Trump doesn’t seem aware that the stakes are now thousands of times higher than anything he’s done in the past.
Minor nitpick: Canada is the U.S.'s largest trading partner, though China is #2 and may take first position fairly soon.
Now those wise suggestions would not sit well with the new administration.
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Am I the only one who thinks Trump may have thought he was getting a call from the President of the People’s Republic of China instead of the President of the Republic of China?
That’s very plausible. I doubt if he knows the difference. He still may not know the difference.
Is there any chance we can get Trump on a round of Celebrity Jeopardy! before he takes office, just so we have some idea of his understanding of geography, history and science?
I’m not to keen on jumping on the Trump-bash for lulz bandwagon, but to be frank, I doubt that many of us have any particular question on how well he would do.
I’m personally holding out the minor hope his administration will be a pleasant surprise.
He’s set my expectations rather low.
I don’t think that you need to be a whiz at geography, etc. to be a decent President. Functionally, people are pretty similar across the planet and the President is going to have a lot of experts to talk to about every country he is going to deal with (if he so chooses). So while I would agree that Trump would probably not score that well, it probably doesn’t matter.
Realistically, it’s not like the Presidents who are highly knowledgeable about everything global, are all that knowledgeable about everything global. Hillary could probably run off the names of some of the leadership in Japan and maybe give a bit of history of the country. But as someone who lived there for 7 years, I’d laugh at almost everything she had to say about how things work in Japan. Fundamentally, unless you’ve lived somewhere for a few years, you’re really going to be pretty close to 0 on the “real understanding” scale, and almost no politician has that for any country outside the US, let alone a majority of the countries which are strategically/economically relevant to us.
Actually, to Trump’s credit, he probably has tried to open some businesses internationally, and that will have required some amount of research into the local culture. And if there is one thing that Trump excels in, it’s understanding the base, black roots of humanity - which are pretty global - so it’s possible that he will do well just on that basis. Fundamentally, global politics is schoolyard rules, and that’s really his strong spot.
But Taiwan is where Trump DOES have hotel projects; China is where he does NOT. (Trump also has major projects in Phillipines.) In your model of reality, if Trump were interested in his business he would have snubbed the country where he IS doing business in favor of the country where ISN’T; do I have that right?
How do you know there’s no secret promise? Did you learn this at a Daily Intelligence Briefing? (Obviously any such agreement would be secret as everyone familiar with the peculiar China-Taiwan-U.S.A. triangle knows.)
I suppose in your model of reality, the agreement would be published in USA Today but still kept secret from the P.R. of China, is that it?
There was I thinking precisely that approach has been the centre-piece of US foreign policy since WII and indeed the whole premise of Trumps MAGA campaign.