, and he appears to have little respect for the potential damage of actions taken without understanding long-standing US national security concerns.
Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1979, no US president or president-elect has had a face-to-face or telephone conversation with his Taiwan counterpart. This was an implicit part of the arrangement Washington accepted when it recognised the PRC as the sole legal government of all of China and agreed to conduct its relations with Taiwan on an unofficial basis.
Over the years, there have been tactical adjustments to ensure that US officials can interact with Taiwan counterparts to pursue and protect their interests and to show proper respect for Taiwan and its democracy. However, top-level US officials — particularly the president — have always shown great care not to upset the post-1979 arrangements. There have been quiet, non-visible written communications between the top leaders of the United States (including presidents and presidents-elect) and Taiwan, but it has always been understood that direct conversations would cross a line not worth challenging.
China’s claim to Taiwan is, and has long been, the most sensitive issue in US–China relations. It was the principal obstacle to the US getting together with Beijing before President Nixon’s 1972 trip, and negotiation of how to handle the issue — the handiwork of Presidents Nixon and Carter and Secretary Kissinger, Secretary Vance, and National Security Advisor Brzezinski — was the central feature of the three Joint Communiques laying the basis for the US –China relationship.
On every aspect of the US relationship with Taiwan — whether it be US arms sales to Taiwan, high-level meetings, military-to-military contacts, visits by senior officials, transits of the United States by Taiwan leaders, or bilateral US–Taiwan agreements — there is a long history about what the United States can do consistent with its commitment to an ‘unofficial’ relationship with Taiwan. The US government does not suddenly, without preparation or reflection, change essential features in a framework that has served our interests, those of Taiwan, and those of the US–China relationship. And most importantly, that has kept the peace in the region.
Unfortunately, President-elect Trump has waded into the thicket of US–Taiwan relations without any apparent briefings by senior State Department officials intimately familiar with this long history. This phone call will likely to be interpreted by Beijing as something much more than a personal chat. The Chinese, unfortunately, are likely to see this as threatening a cornerstone of the edifice on which US–China relations are built. The Chinese rarely overlook what they perceive a potential alteration in US policy toward Taiwan. A look back at their conduct in 1995, when they undertook ballistic military exercises that threatened Taiwan in the wake of an unprecedented US invitation to Taiwan’s president to speak at Cornell University, illustrates the Chinese mindset. We may neither like nor admire this, but we cannot ignore it.
It is too soon to tell if the Chinese will overreact by taking steps against either Taiwan or American interests. So far, it would appear that cooler heads will prevail in Beijing. They seem to be blaming Taiwan’s leadership, rather than publicly asserting that Trump or the United States was responsible. They may judge that they should show restraint in order to avoid rocking the boat too soon in their relationship with the incoming Trump administration.
That is not an experiment, however, that Trump should have conducted. It will put Beijing more on edge to react harshly to future challenges by Trump. Additionally, relations between Beijing and Taipei are especially sensitive right now, since the election of the candidate of the historically pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party earlier this year. That prompted Beijing to cut off political ties with Taiwan until President Tsai recognises the ‘one China principle’ that, under various interpretations, underlies previous contacts. President Tsai cannot do that for reasons of politics and conviction, and before the Trump–Tsai conversation there was a risk that Beijing might increase pressure on a recalcitrant Taiwan in damaging ways. That risk can only be compounded by this gratuitous phone conversation.
It is not in Taiwan’s interest to see the framework of the US–PRC–Taiwan relationship fundamentally altered. Restraint across the Taiwan Strait on the part of Beijing is essential for Taiwan’s security. Arms purchased from the United States and US assurances of support under the Taiwan Relations Act passed after the lapse of the US–Republic of China (Taiwan) security treaty in 1980 are valuable, but Chinese continued intention to resolve cross-Strait issues peacefully is at least as important.
Thumbing our noses at Beijing on its most sensitive national and security issue may feel temporarily satisfying, but provoking it when it has many cards to play makes no strategic sense. One can empathise with President Tsai’s desire to establish contact with and gain respect from the incoming US president. What is incomprehensible, however, is how the incoming US president could casually ignore the historic and strategic factors that all eight presidents since Nixon have understood and acceded to the call.
There are many Republican officials who understand this history well and have been involved in managing it. They know the importance of the US relationship with China, with Taiwan, and how we have protected both despite the sometimes contradictory challenges. A number of them declared their opposition to candidate Trump, and wounds may be slow in healing.
President-elect Trump would be well-advised, however, to reach out to this large reservoir of talent, both for advice during the transition and to staff his administration, as well as to draw on the great expertise of State Department and intelligence community officials, who have years steeped in these problems. President-elect Trump is free to disregard their advice, but it is profoundly contrary to American, and his, interest to ignore it.
Jeffrey A. Bader is Senior Fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution.
This article was first published here at Brookings.
The author is the conservative in this situation, protecting the status quo with little basis in fact. An agreement made in 1979 is ripe for renegotiation today.
Sticking one’s thumb in the eye of the other party is generally not a constructive way to ‘renogiate’ an understanding. Having a quiet, off the record discussion about changing things might prove more effective. But then there is nothing quiet about the way Trump operates. As for effective……we shall see, eh?
Trump proved throughout his campaign that he cared little about ‘tradition.’ In fact, he revels in doing just the opposite if it earns him attention and possibly notoriety. He also cares little about considering the consequences of his statements or behavior. He claims he operates on gut level instincts. Others who are more thoughtful and analytical see him as impulsive, unpredictable,and even reckless. His style may mean success for a TV reality show. It may also bring him business success in a country where he can claim bankruptcy when his actions get himself into financial trouble. We will find out how it works as the leader of the world’s most powerful country….
1 “Thumbing our noses at Beijing on its most sensitive national and security issue may feel temporarily satisfying, but provoking it when it has many cards to play makes no strategic sense.”
This is true. And the good news is that after Kissinger visited him this week, Trump seems chastened and he gets the big picture that antagonizing China (a nuclear power) over its core interests over Taiwan flies in the face of logic as China is America biggest trading partner and biggest holder US Treasury debt.
At a ‘thank you’ tour of swing states like North Carolina, Trump told his supporters in Fayetteville on 6 December that he wants to “strengthen old friendships and seek out new friendships,” stressing that the US will “stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with.”
He added “We’ve spent, at last count, $6 trillion in the Middle East, and our roads have potholes all over, our highways are falling apart, our bridges are falling, our tunnels are no good, our airports are horrible like third world countries. We don’t want to have a depleted military because we’re all over the place fighting in areas that we shouldn’t be fighting in. It’s not going to be depleted any longer.”
Trump also said. “We’re going to start spending on ourselves, but we’ve got to be so strong militarily like we’ve never ever been before, “not as an act of aggression, but as an act of prevention. In short, we seek peace through strength.” Bravo.
2 Will the neocons and the 1 per cent elites allow Trump to keep his campaign promise to drain the swamp with impunity? The jury is still out.
President Nixon and Adviser Kissinger made a gross mistake in thinking, as I think they thought, that rapprochement with China would bring it as a responsible stake holder into the Westphalian system of nation-states. “It is an American fault, not China’s” as I (Michi) said in my comment, It IS Not China’s Fault, on Michael Pillsbury/The Hundred-Year Marathon, amazon usa.”
Hardly anything is so alien to China as the theory of Westphalia because of its deeply ingrained historical and cultural world-view of the Middle Kingdom at the top of the world. “China’s obstinacy in refusing to fit into the Western state
system (George Kennan, American Diplomacy)” is the first thing than can be observed, but the US administrations have historically failed consitently to notice it on account of “a certain sentimentality toward China (Kennan, ibid).”
“top-level officials－particularly the president－have always shown great care not to upset the post-1979 arrangements…There’s a long history about what the United States can do consitent with its commitment to an “unofficial” relationship with Taiwan.” This American policy has not been reciprocated by China. One step backward is “reciprocated” by China with one step forward for Pax Sinica.
Weighed down by a US$20 trillion national debt millstone, Trump is no longer interested in engaging in intervention, regime change and creating chaos overseas.
Japan is now left high and dry but paradoxically, it still ratifies the TPP hoping against odds that Trump will change his mind. Fat chance.
Japan’s 18th century Meiji westernization gambit has finally come to a dead end and it should think seriously about joining China in a quest for prosperity and world peace, not imperialism.
Prof Jean-Pierre Lehmann wrote that “Whereas from the late 18th century, when almost all of Asia was colonised or otherwise subjugated by the West, Japan stood out as the only Asian country to “join” the West and become in turn an imperialist power in its own neighbourhood.”
He added “In the course of the last century-and-a-half, whereas Japan has had a number of Asian colonies (Taiwan, Korea and Manchuria), it has never had any Asian allies. Japan has stood out as literally the “odd Asian man out”.
“In the course of the 1930s, relations with Britain (and the US) soured, leading Japan to become the ally of Nazi Germany in its wars against China and the US.”
“Since 1952, it has been the US’ closest ally in the Asia-Pacific. It followed Washington’s foreign policy lead to the letter. Thus, it refused to recognise the Beijing government of the People’s Republic of China, instead recognising the Taipei government of the so-called Republic of China. Japan eventually switched, but only after President Richard Nixon’s surprise visit to Beijing in 1972.”
“In fact, in the course of the ensuing years, two major developments occurred. The Japanese economy tanked and entered its lost decades, from which it still has not emerged, while China’s economy soared, overtaking Japan, then the US (in purchasing power parity, or PPP, terms).”
“China, not Japan, became the newly risen Asian global power. Having been based in Tokyo during the 1980s and visiting the country frequently in the 1990s, I can vouch for the fact that mainly due to atavistic perceptions, prejudice and contempt for China, the Japanese did not see this major Chinese transformation occurring. Tokyo was taken completely off guard and has remained in a state of strategic torpor.”
“So what will Japan do now in the light of United States President- elect Donald Trump’s declared intention to pivot out of the Asia- Pacific, including abandoning the TPP?”
“With the US no longer willing to provide protection for Japan, the China-Japan relationship has become, to paraphrase Mr Mansfield, the most important bilateral relationship, bar none.”
Japan ignores this prescient advice at its own peril.
More here: http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/the-most-important-bilateral-relationship-in-the-world-china-japan/
KTTan,
Thank you for your comment. I read Prof. Lehman’s essay. I think there are many Japanese who would agree with him. But I don’t, though of course I may not deny some points he raised. He sent one and I sent five comments on Alistair Burnett/War Drums in Asia: Back to the European Future?
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/war-drums-asia-back-european-future.
Recently I sent two comments on Sheila Smith/Looking Ahead in Asia, With Our Allies, and said it was time to know the truth.
http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/2016/11/30/looking-ahead-in-asia-with-our-allies.
A reader, Kyi May Kaung, sent a comment on Franz Neumann/Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism, amazon usa, and I (Michi) sent two replies to it.
I (Michi) also sent a comment on Michael Pillsbury/The Hundred-Year Marathon and another on The Chinese Comfort Women, amazon usa.
Read them if interested.
I do not deny Japan had an aggressive and colonial policy since 1868 and I do not deny the Pacific War. From these facts and others mistakenly shallow interpretations are usually made of modern histroy of Japan.
For instance it was the Chinese that traditionally despised the Japanese, not vice versa.
For anther instance, Mao had two aims in offering an invitation to President Nixon. One was obviously to get out of China’s international isolation. The other was that Mao and others wanted close relationship with Japan for economic rehabilitation and seeing Japan unable to come closer, they felt the need to make a kind of rapprochement with the United States first.
In the 1950s, if you were in China, you did not see any anti-Japanese feelings because the government did not have any such policy; instead anti-American feeling were rampant. In the 1960s you were sure to see China filled with anti-American and anti-Russian sentements but not anti-Japanese. In the 1970s animosity against Russia was as strong as ever, but no anti-American (you could guess why) and anti-Japanese animosity.
In the 1990s Beijing changed its popuar song for the masses to sing together and began to spread internationally “Japan is not remorseful of its past deed while Germany is,” and “The Japanese Prime Minister should not visit Yasukuni Shrine, etc.”