ROFLMAO: Oh no! Trump talked to Taiwan!

[ocrenter]

[quote=FlyerInHi]I don’t follow Taiwan’s politics. I just read some international papers, but I believe that Taiwan still pretends to represent all of China though there is an independence movement.

I wish Taiwan all the best, but China is 14% of international trade vs 12% for the US.

Too late now to support Taiwan independence, and not worth the tradeoffs and war. Better to engage China.

I honestly don’t think that Trump knows anything about Taiwan.
“Mr Trump, we have the president of the Republic of China on the line”.
Trump to self: “wow, I’m a big dude, they are groveling before me like Mitt Romney.”

Trump and his uneducated supporters: “China, Taiwan, same shit. The liberal elitists are splitting hair.”[/quote]

FYI, Taiwan doesn’t pretend to be all of China and Mongolia. The Republic of China moniker is the reason for that age old misnomer.

Liberal elitism is nothing more than appeasement to the strong and powerful.

Taiwan is sovereign and independent, much more so than failed liberal pet projects like South Sudan.

Although you did not answer the root cause for liberal disdain of Taiwan, you do confirm that stereotype.

I’m quite glad Trump is the president after our convo today, thank you.

[no_such_reality]

Yep, a lot like listening to a middle school girl rationalizing why she’s ostracizing Becky because Cindy Clique leader says so.

It really doesn’t matter what Trump does, the people complaining are going to complain.

[scaredyclassic]

im fine with it, as long as hes thought it through and has a strategy.

seems unlikely, but possible.

i think he goes for it, whatever it is.

worked for him so far.

makes me nervous tho.

also hes fat. little tiny penis too.

i am praying at him.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=no_such_reality]Yep, a lot like listening to a middle school girl rationalizing why she’s ostracizing Becky because Cindy Clique leader says so.

It really doesn’t matter what Trump does, the people complaining are going to complain.[/quote]

The thing is that Trump is upending decades long US policy. That makes us look bad and unreliable. Makes him seem ignorant of policy.

Supporting Taiwan independence would be something that requires years of planning, and secret negotiations, like the reestablishment of relations with Cuba.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=ocrenter]

I’m quite glad Trump is the president after our convo today, thank you.[/quote]

Knowing China, there will be a price to pay for this indiscretion, so you may not be glad after all.

International relations is all about a grand game of reciprocity among the major powers. Don’t do anything that isn’t well thought out. Trump is harming US interests for doing things that don’t accrue benefits.

BTW, the Republican lame duck congress would have passed TPP if Hillary had won and Obama would have signed. The rejection of TPP shows failure of US policy in the Pacific, a retreating of the US, and years of negotiating hard work down the drain. We are weaker and China is stronger.

[ocrenter]

[quote=FlyerInHi]

Knowing China, there will be a price to pay for this indiscretion, so you may not be glad after all.

International relations is all about a grand game of reciprocity among the major powers. Don’t do anything that isn’t well thought out. Trump is harming US interests for doing things that don’t accrue benefits.

BTW, the Republican lame duck congress would have passed TPP if Hillary had won and Obama would have signed. The rejection of TPP shows failure of US policy in the Pacific, a retreating of the US, and years of negotiating hard work down the drain. We are weaker and China is stronger.[/quote]

I would have wanted TPP as well. but remember the GOP won congress, so I’m not quite sure where you get the idea that they would have allowed TPP to pass.

Regarding China, appeasement doesn’t work. Remember nationalism is strong and growing, and every step given is just looked at as something that was rightfully theirs to begin with. the KMT appeased China for the last 8 years and Taiwan’s space got smaller still. the strategy of keeping Taiwan in the closet wasn’t working. sometimes you need someone to point out the obvious.

[NotCranky]

Blame Trump for not wanting to offend Russian and also for offending China is not consistent with appeasing all super powers. Which way should it be?

[ocrenter]

This is an anonymous letter from one liberal social activist to another, on the recent uproar over US President-Elect Trump’s call with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen.

Dear Social Activist Friend,

I hope you are staying strong in the wake of this election! The aftermath has been struggle, and it’s important that we all support each other in trying times. I’ve definitely appreciated your encouraging messages these last few weeks about Black Lives Matter, defending American democracy, and the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.

Since you and I are very much in sync on the issues we care about, I wanted to reach out to you about the country of Taiwan, which the media has covered these past few days. I’ve already seen activists attack Trump for having a phone call with the president of Taiwan, citing fears that it will anger China. But while it seems natural to use this incident to bash the president-elect, the call isn’t what the media has made it out to be. I was hoping to share a different perspective, so we can look at the actual substance of America’s relationship with Taiwan.

Despite having only 23 million people, Taiwan is one of America’s largest trading partners—it ranked 9th last year. And we are their 2nd largest trading partner, so it’s evident that our two nations have a close commercial relationship. (For example, regardless of its brand, your laptop computer was probably made by a Taiwanese company.)

Taiwan is a successful democracy. It elected its first female president in January of this year, which was a massively historic event. Her name is Tsai Ing-wen, and her championing of social justice and economic issues won her broad support, including young people, the working class and the middle class. Taiwan’s legislature is poised to legalize gay marriage, as The New York Times has reported, which would make it the first country in Asia to do so. Oh, and did I mention, that it has universal healthcare?

Ever since the U.S. Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, in an overwhelmingly bipartisan way, to legally authorize many types of ties between our nations, America has continued to contribute to Taiwan’s defense.

The media has missed both the contemporary and historic context. While the Carter Administration broke “official” ties with Taiwan in 1979 to try to cozy up to China, the United States has kept up strong commercial, cultural and other relations up through present day. Trade and military exchanges happen on a periodic basis, and we have what amounts to an embassy in Taipei, the country’s capital. (We’re technically just not allowed to call it an “embassy,” although it is staffed by State Department foreign officers.)

While the United States may “acknowledge” that China has made a claim that it should be allowed to take over its democratic neighbor Taiwan, our government certainly does not “recognize” the validity of this claim. The difference between those words matters in international affairs.

Even though Trump is a problematic president-elect who has said things that harm democracy in the United States, in this instance, he’s actually done a very simple and decent thing: he had a friendly phone call with the leader of one of our closest trading partners and allies. Perhaps this action appears to flout certain diplomatic practices, but in my mind, it’s actually a good thing to try to talk more with our friends. Talking doesn’t imply that any major policy changes have taken place; it’s simply a chance to have a dialogue so we understand each other better.

On issues of trade, the environment, and security cooperation, increasing numbers of scholars and experts (including people on both sides of the political aisle, who have served in China, in Taiwan, and in Washington D.C.) are questioning why we must keep Taiwanese representatives at a distance, solely based on a set of rules drafted by the Carter White House 37 years ago, as part of persuading China to help us oppose the Soviet Union.

Let’s not lump in a friendly phone call to Taiwan with Trump’s very real problems, such as his conflicts of interest, ill treatment of minorities, and pledges to “build the wall.” Rather than jumping to conclusions about whether something is good or bad, right or wrong, depending on what Trump thinks about it, I hope we can look at issue on their own terms.

Whatever Trump’s intentions with the call, the act of supporting a small democratic country is something I think all Americans can get behind. After the repeated scares about Russia they had to endure during the presidential campaign, our NATO allies Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (populations or 1.3 million, 2 million, and 3 million) might be feeling a little bit better now. The same goes for the people of Taiwan, who have long been concerned about China trying to suppress them with political threats and military force.

I don’t think anyone intends to help big countries bully small ones, but by not being up to speed on the issues, the American media has unintentionally parroted the lines commonly used by the authoritarian Chinese regime—it’s quite unfortunate. Hopefully reporters will strive to be more informed next time, instead of punting an entire democratic nation like a political football, just to score anti-Trump points. But it will take folks like you and me getting the facts right and staying engaged, so we can make sure news organizations report more accurately in the future.

I completely stand with you, as we fight for human rights, spur action on climate change, remain vigilant about the Trump administration’s shenanigans, defend our POC/LGBT/working class brothers and sisters, and strive to achieve social justice for all. Let’s do the same for our democratic friends in Taiwan.

In solidarity,

Your fellow American

P.S. I think you’d love Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen. She’s a very smart lady with a great sense of humor (who also loves cats) http://qz.com/596269/taiwans-new-president-is-a-female-academic-who-loves-cats-and-supports-gay-rights

[Anonymous]

[quote=no_such_reality]Whatever.

Seriously, the complicated, delicate, decades long diplomatic relations that Trump doesn’t get the nuances off frankly have all the look and issues of a middle school mean girls clique.[/quote]

And the the rival cliques have nuclear weapons. Just like junior high school.

[Anonymous]

[quote=ocrenter]This is an anonymous letter from one liberal [/quote]

It seems can’t go more than few sentences without saying the word “liberal”

Obsessed much?

[ocrenter]

[quote=harvey][quote=ocrenter]This is an anonymous letter from one liberal [/quote]

It seems can’t go more than few sentences without saying the word “liberal”

Obsessed much?[/quote]

This whole liberal disdain of progressive Taiwan is an odd observation that others have picked up as well, in fact, concerned enough to actually generate a letter to their fellow liberals. Thought I would share it here especially with our resident liberal representative, who also has very low opinion of a place that beat the US to a woman president, universal health coverage, and will enact a law for gay marriage (a bit different in court overturning gay marriage ban).

[Anonymous]

[quote=ocrenter][quote=harvey][quote=ocrenter]This is an anonymous letter from one liberal [/quote]

It seems can’t go more than few sentences without saying the word “liberal”

Obsessed much?[/quote]

This whole liberal …[/quote]

Yup, obsessed.

[Coronita]

So originally I thinking that the U.S. was going to be messed up with Trump at the helm, while the rest of the world more organized is going to jump ahead of the U.S.

I’m beginning to think of the opposite. Maybe it’s Trump’s genius to do this. Or maybe it’s just his plain ignorance that ends up producing the same results….But the scenario I’m thinking is that by a few subtle things Trump does, he ends up causing so much conflict abroad, that the rest of the world ends up being just as screwed up, if not more screwed up, than we will be.

Take this taiwan/china issue. In one little phone call, if Trump manages to destabilize Asia, that’s pretty impressive. I mean, combined with the idea of U.S. pulling out of Asia politics, I wonder if this would start an arms race back there. The greatest threat to progress is if you have with ethnicity get into conflict with themselves. And this China/Taiwan spat might just do the trick back there. Although my roots is Taiwanese and I am pro-taiwan independence…I’d like to get the point that we don’t split hairs and say things like “I’m not chinese, I’m taiwanese” and vice versus. It doesn’t help the greater cause for asians in the 21st century, imho. And I personally wouldn’t want to see either Taiwan or China fail, since I have no desire to seeing us asians set back in progress.

edit:

looks like it was intentional…
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-world/ct-donald-trump-taiwan-call-20161204-story.html

[an]

[quote=flu]looks like it was intentional…
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-world/ct-donald-trump-taiwan-call-20161204-story.html%5B/quote%5D
Must be intentional ignorance as Brian would like to say. He planned for months to be ignorance.

[no_such_reality]

[quote=ocrenter]Let’s not lump in a friendly phone call to Taiwan with Trump’s very real problems, such as his conflicts of interest, ill treatment of minorities, and pledges to “build the wall.” Rather than jumping to conclusions about whether something is good or bad, right or wrong, depending on what Trump thinks about it, I hope we can look at issue on their own terms.[/quote]

That’s the nutshell. Trump says it == bad, Trump doesn’t like it == “good”.

If it wasn’t so sad, I’d chuckle, but since I have a large contingent of friends still visible via facebook in the midwest, I get see one side sharing their fakenews praising Obama for ending the DAPL standoff while the other side sharing their fakenews about the America haters in the world getting an ass pucker by Trump naming ‘Mad Dog’.

All the while it seems more and more everyday like the world really does run like 1970s/1980s high school with jocks, geeks, bullies and popular cliques. The EU and America is being run by the nerdy kids and the rest of the world has the likes of Putin, Assad, Rousseff.

The Western leaders are planning a nice prom and acting like were all going to go sing kumbaya, solve climate change and be happy, but all the regular high school kids know somebody is getting pigs blood dumped on them.

Yea, it’s a cynical take and I’m sure it’s “much more complex”

[Author]

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