Chinese paper calls Trump ‘ignorant’ after Taiwan comments

Amid all this, Mr Trump has put Taiwan back into play as an worldwide sparking point for the first time since the 1970s, potentially to use it as a bargaining chip against a more assertive and aggressive China.

Trump roiled Chinese sensibilities Friday by taking a phone call from Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen – the first such call since the Nixon administration, and a sharp reversal to decades of following the so-called “One China” policy. “Taiwan’s tiny population means there is no jobs threat”, Scissors says, but Taiwan is also the United States’ ninth-largest trading partner.

The U.S. broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan and officially recognized the Communist government in Beijing in 1979. The self-ruled island would cooperate with other countries in carrying out scientific research in the area, she added. For example, Beijing’s actions over the last several years in the South China Sea – through which 80% of the natural resources it needs to power its economy passes – have sparked heated debate in America that China not only may have unsafe ambitions, but seeks to push America out of the Asia-Pacific entirely. It can also strengthen the hand of those inside the Chinese regime who are seeking to reform it.

But this time it warned that if Trump “openly abandons the one-China policy, there will be a real storm”.

“When it comes to Taiwan, everything is unprecedented because it’s so infrequent”, Lin said.

Since then no American president or president-elect is known to have spoken with a Taiwanese president, although Washington maintains close informal ties with Taiwan’s democratically elected leaders.

Trump promised during the campaign that he would take a tougher stand with China, and supporting Taiwan has always been part of his get-tough approach to Beijing.

Trump has not indicated if official policy on Taiwan will change but he defended speaking to Tsai.

On the military front, Trump could begin sending general officers to Taipei once again to coordinate with their Taiwanese counterparts and hold joint military exercises. Or, will he send senior advisers to greet Tsai – or even meet her himself – if she’s granted permission to stop over in the United States on her way to Central America in early January before Trump takes office.

About 79% of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders voted for Hillary Clinton this November, according to an exit poll conducted by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

“China was blinded by its hate of Hillary, but did not realize that it is getting a much more offensive US president, supported by a very anti-communist and ambitious Republican Party”, he said.

President George W. Bush sparked a similar outcry in 2001 when he said he would do “whatever it takes” to defend Taiwan from China in a televised interview, Lin said.

But Trump’s call with Tsai sparked excitement and cautious support from many Taiwanese Americans – a reminder that political identity is as variegated as humanity. The Chinese regime would spy, steal, or bamboozle the United States, and the United States would keep the relationship going, only making toothless objections from time to time. As part of the trip she will attend the inauguration of the Nicaraguan president and make stopovers in the United States.

China’s economy has become more open and personal freedom has expanded over the past few decades, he said.

His comments prompted an angry response from Chinese state media. A columnist for Xinhua, Beijing’s official news agency, later warned that Tsai, who is unmarried, “does not now have the pull of love, or know the burdens of family or the care of children, which makes her style and policies too emotional, too individual, and too extreme”.

China urged Mr Trump to understand the sensitivity of the Taiwan issue.

Beijing’s leaders see Taiwan as crucial to their own legitimacy. Yet today reunification seems further away than ever.

Let’s dispense with the handwringing about dispensing with US policy toward Taiwan and why shaking things up with China is a smart move.

Trump’s policy would create an advantageous global situation for Japan. In the wake of the call, Tsai’s aides publicly feigned bewilderment at the global uproar it had caused.

Beijing later lodged a complaint against the USA over the call. That she made it anyway suggests a hidden streak of boldness that her most fervent supporters have hoped for, and that Beijing has long feared.