Trump’s Taiwan call

Four decades of US-China diplomatic protocol was broken last week when President-elect Donald Trump accepted a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, an act that could be interpreted as treating Taiwan as a separate country; and its President as a head of state which is considered a “red line” as far as China is concerned.

This tense situation has been exacerbated by the election of a new nationalist government in Taiwan. Hong Kong has the Yellow Umbrella Movement that holds that Hong Kong is not China. Taiwan has the Sunflower Movement wherein many of its members say they are Taiwanese and not Chinese.

There is now an ongoing debate whether the phone call was the act of an irresponsible campaign team lacking in foreign policy expertise or whether it was deliberately planned and executed.  Surprisingly, one of Trump’s fiercest critics – the Washington Post – ran the story with the following headline: “ Trump’s Taiwan call wasn’t a blunder. It was brilliant.”

In their story the Post said: “ Donald Trump’s phone call with the president of Taiwan wasn’t a blunder by an inexperienced president elect unschooled in the niceties of cross-straits diplomacy. It was a deliberate move – and a brilliant one at that.”

The phone call with President Tsai Ing-wen was reportedly carefully planned, and Trump was fully briefed  before the call...Trump knew precisely what he was doing...He was serving notice to Beijing that it is dealing with a different kind of president...that the president of the United States will talk to whomever he wants if he thinks it is in the interest of the United States and nobody in Beijing gets to dictate who we talk to.”

On hindsight, the call should not have come as a surprise. Trump campaign rhetoric contained a lot of anti-China messages that resonated well with the American working class voters who had seen a lot of jobs leave the United States and transferred to China because of much lower labor costs. One of Trump’s most applauded campaign line was when he would say that he would stand up to China’s “rape” of the US economy.

After Beijing criticized him for making the call, Trump even became more aggressive in his anti-China rhetoric when he tweeted the following statement:

“Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency [making it hard for our company to compete] heavily tax our products going to into their country [ the United States does not tax them ] or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea.”

Trump seems to be repeating the accusation, by some economic observers, that China is an economic parasite that has  thrived at the expense of the rest of the world. For example, the WTO reports that China charges an average of 15.6% tariff on US agricultural products and 9% on other goods. The United States charges only 4.4% tariff on Chinese agricultural products and 3.6% on other products.

A trade war between the United States and China seems to be inevitable. Of course, the United States will deny it is a trade war. It will simply point to trade practices by China  and the need for the United States to defend its economy and prevent further loss of jobs. The United States will point to currency manipulation by China to increase exports. Then there the inequitable tariff and non-tariff barriers that China practices. There are lots of reported subsidies for Chinese exporters.

Rise of nationalism

The United States and China are the world’s largest superpowers. Ideally the world should look to these two countries for global leadership. Unfortunately, these two nations have decided to put their own national interests ahead of global interests.

Trump calls it “America First” and talks of building walls and punishing American companies that would rather invest abroad than in their home country. He sees the world as camps divided into friends and foes depending on the interests of the United States.

And what of China? A recent article in the Economist said: “ In China a similarly ethnic, non-universalist nationalism is being pressed into service by the communist Party...The government often blames “hostile foreign forces” for things it does not  like including protests in Hong Kong or Xinjiang....State television tries to make other countries look stupid, dangerous or irrelevant. Anti-Western rhetoric has been stepped up.

Perhaps, unsurprisingly, given the jingoism, many Chinese now see international affairs as a zero sum game, believing that for China to rise, others must fall.”

Are the US and China destined for war?

The ancient Greek philosopher – Thucydides – formulated a theory that there is always a danger of violent conflict when a rising power rivals a rising power. There have been several cases in world history – Athens, a rising power vs. Sparta; Macedonia vs. The Persian Empire;. Germany vs. Britain during World War I; and the United States vs. Germany and Japan during World War II. The wars often begun with a crisis that escalates into a cascade of reactions and produces a war that benefits no one. World War 1 started with the assassination of an Austrian Crown Prince. This is called the Thucydides Trap.

During a visit to the United States China’s President Xi Jing Ping said: “ There is no such thing as the so-called Thucydides Trap in the world. But should major countries time and again make the mistake of strategic miscalculation, they might create such traps for themselves.”

It has been said that one of the likeliest place for the Thucydides Trap to happen is in the South China Sea.

Creative Writing Class for Kids and Teens

Christmas Writing Class for Kids & Teens on December 10 (1:30pm-3pm) at Fully Booked Bonifacio High Street.  For registration and fee details text 0917-6240196 or email [email protected].

Email: [email protected]