Is Trump Calling Out Xi Jinping?

Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan

Like a bolt of lightning, that call of congratulations from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen to President-elect Donald Trump illuminated the Asian landscape.

We can see clearly now the profit and loss statement from more than three decades of accommodating and appeasing China, since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger made their historic journey in 1972.

What are the gains and losses?

Soon after Nixon announced the trip in July 1971, our World War II ally, the Republic of China on Taiwan, was expelled from the UN, its permanent seat on the Security Council given to the People’s Republic of China’s Chairman Mao, a rival of Stalin’s in mass murder.

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In 1979, Jimmy Carter recognized the regime in Beijing, cut ties to Taipei and terminated the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty of 1954. All over the world countries followed our lead, shut down Taiwan’s embassies, and expelled her diplomats. Our former allies have since been treated as global pariahs.

During the 1990s and into the new century, Republicans, acting on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, voted annually to grant Most Favored Nation trade status for China. They then voted to make it permanent and escort China into the WTO.

What did China get out of the new U.S. policy? Vast investment and $4 trillion in trade surpluses at America’s expense over 25 years.

From the backward country mired in the madness of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1972, China grew by double-digits yearly to become the foremost manufacturing nation on earth, and has used its immense earnings from trade to make itself a military power to rival the United States.

China now claims all the islands of the South China Sea, has begun converting reefs into military bases, targeted hundreds of missiles on Taiwan, claimed the Senkakus held by Japan, ordered U.S. warships out of the Taiwan Strait, brought down a U.S. EP-3 on Hainan island in 2001, and then demanded and got from Secretary of State Colin Powell an apology for violating Chinese airspace.

Beijing has manipulated her currency, demanded transfers of U.S. technology, and stolen much of what of U.S. did not cover.

For decades, China has declared a goal of driving the United States out beyond the second chain of islands off Asia, i.e., out of the Western Pacific and back to Guam, Hawaii and the West Coast.

During these same decades, some of us were asking insistently what we were getting in return.

Thus Trump’s phone call seemed the right signal to Beijing — while we recognize one China, we have millions of friends on Taiwan in whose future as a free people we retain an interest.

China bristled at Trump’s first communication between U.S. and Taiwanese leaders since 1979, with Beijing indicating that Trump’s failure to understand the Asian situation may explain the American’s gaffe.

Sunday, Vice President-elect Mike Pence assured us that nothing of significance should be read into the 15-minute phone call of congratulations.

Trump, however, was less polite and reassuring, giving Beijing the wet mitten across the face for its impertinence:

“Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the U.S. doesn’t tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea?”

Trump then answered his own question, “I don’t think so.”

According to The Washington Post, the phone call from Taiwan to Trump was no chance happening. It had been planned for weeks. And people in Trump’s inner circle are looking to closer ties to Taiwan and a tougher policy toward Beijing.

This suggests that Trump was aware there might be a sharp retort from Beijing, and that his tweets dismissing Chinese protests and doubling down on the Taiwan issue were both considered and deliberate.

Well, the fat is in the fire now.

Across Asia, every capital is waiting to see how Xi Jinping responds, for a matter of face would seem to be involved.

On the trade front, China is deeply vulnerable. U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods would cause a sudden massive loss of income to factories in China and a stampede out of the country to elsewhere in Asia by companies now producing in the Middle Kingdom.

On the other hand, without China using its economic leverage over North Korea, it is unlikely any sanctions the U.S. and its allies can impose will persuade Kim Jong Un to halt his nuclear weapons program.

China can choke North Korea to death. But China can also step back and let Pyongyang become a nuclear weapons state, though that could mean Seoul and Tokyo following suit, which would be intolerable to Beijing.

Before we go down this road, President-elect Trump and his foreign policy team ought to think through just where it leads — and where it might end.

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Anonymous
Anonymous

With all the world making adjustments to their policies and forming relationships with Trump, I wonder what the result will be when the Democrats and Republican Establishment pulls off an electoral coup and puts someone else in (presumably Hillary or someone the Republicans wanted to put in before Trump swept the primaries)?

A chaotic last minute realignment at best I think, and places like the Philippines and maybe Taiwan and some European nations making sudden shifts away from alliances with the US. At worst, I don’t even want to speculate about it.

The Ruling Elite has no intention to let Trump take power and actually start making the changes he has already initiated, changes they abhor, before even taking office.

Ralph
Ralph

The last sentence in Pat’s column suggests that Trump’s foreign policy team hasn’t “thought through” what they’re doing. I suggest they have, and furthermore that it’s long overdue.

Wip
Wip

This is shaping up to be the most interesting presidency in my lifetime.

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

Do we really want to go to war with China to defend Taiwan? If not, we shouldn’t write checks we can’t cover.

Wip
Wip

If we can’t talk to whoever we want to talk to who the fuck is in charge?

monger
monger

the us gov feeds the enemies of our liberty and prosperity, with our labors, what else is new ?

Anonymous
Anonymous

Under Bush and then Obama, China seems to assume it has the right to dictate to us: https://www.yahoo.com/news/chinese-media-offer-stern-warning-rookie-trump-061137748.html

So ask yourselves, is this the way it is and should be or do you want a change?

fear & loathing
fear & loathing

pat i usually agree, i did not agree with nixon then nor do i agree now. it suited me fine if mao’s revolution went on and on. i have bucked the system for 45 years lost every battle, that is why i enjoy trump pissing everyone off. he could be ivan the terrible, who knows. i love how he jerks the media by the neck and they are too stupid to realize. state of va is so sick, not enough to promote lottery now they promote state owned liquor stores. post ivan were the time of troubles, we are heading that way.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Bucking the system…it’s a crime you lost every fight. That’s what happens when

Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose
Nothin’, don’t mean nothin’ hon’ if it ain’t free, no no
And, feelin’ good was easy, Lord, when he sang the blues
You know, feelin’ good was good enough for me…

James the Wanderer

In one stroke Trump launched a diplomatic initiative that Foggy Bottom (State Dept) had NO hand in. They are threatened, humiliated and defeated before he even takes office.
Jinping has lost nothing – not one Chinese life has been taken or threatened. The Neocons have lost everything – if they are not controlling US foreign policy from the “seventh floor” of the State Dept., then they are not in control. Control that Obama let them have for his entire two terms, and which Hillary did not threaten, content as she was to reap bribes for favors while changing nothing substantial.
If Trump puts US national interests ahead of Israel’s, the E.U.’s, the Saudis and everyone else (perhaps while keeping some allies like the UK, Japanese and Koreans, various others in mind) then we will see a better result than 10,000 bureaucrats in Foggy Bottom can even dream of.

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