By David A. Andelman
David A. Andelman, visiting scholar at the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School as well as managing director of its Red Lines Project, is a contributor to CNN as well as columnist for USA Today. Author of "A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 as well as the Price We Pay Today," he formerly was a unusual correspondent for The New York Times as well as CBS News inwards Asia as well as Europe. Follow him on Twitter @DavidAndelman. The views expressed inwards this commentary are his own.
(CNN)Donald Trump is poised to stick a 2nd pollex inwards the optic of mainland People's Republic of China as well as its newly ordained President for life, Xi Jinping. On Thursday, it was $50 billion worth of ill-advised tariffsagainst a province fully able to retaliate with a devastating tariff state of war of its own. Last week, the starting fourth dimension pollex was inwards the shape of a uncomplicated two-line annotation from the White House. Sandwiched betwixt 3 congressional bills renaming post service offices, Trump signed into constabulary the Taiwan Travel Act, which encourages "visits betwixt officials of the US as well as Taiwan at all levels."
Basically, the neb allows the President of Taiwan as well as other superlative authorities officials, who for 4 decades stimulate got been barred from visiting the United States, to come upwardly for official visits as well as allows senior Americans to larn at that spot every bit well.
If the tariff regime is real much superlative of hear from Wall Street to Shanghai, the Taiwan Travel Act went lilliputian noticed inwards Washington, piece looming large inwards Beijing, where leaders were bordering on the apoplectic. From the podium of the National People's Congress that had simply given him the correct to serve every bit President for life, Xi proclaimed angrily: "Any actions or tricks to dissever the province are leap to fail. They volition have the condemnation of the people as well as the penalization of history." And he continued to affirm his country's unflinching intent of maintaining a one-China policy.
For decades this policy has met with tacit credence past times Taiwan as well as the US -- for certain since 1979 when President Jimmy Carter established total diplomatic relations with Beijing. At that moment, an deed of Congress established guidelines for relations betwixt the ii countries, restricting whatsoever top-level visits past times leaders of Taiwan as well as the United States.
But when the island's novel President, Tsai Ing-wen, took piece of job final year, she effectively repudiated the two-China concept, all of a precipitous ratcheting upwardly the temperature betwixt Taiwan as well as the mainland. So now, inwards the wake of the novel go act, the waiting game begins on both sides of the Taiwan Strait: When mightiness Tsai pay a see to Washington with all that would entail?
Together with the $50 billion inwards tariffs Trump is prepared to levy on Chinese products as well as intellectual property, the President is reaching dangerously some ii of the existential 3rd rails of dealing with China.
Indeed, ii senior Taiwanese officials could scarcely comprise themselves at tiffin with me before this calendar week inwards describing the Taiwan Travel Act every bit ane measuring -- but a large ane -- on the route toward containing a determinedly nationalist China. "The burden of maintaining peace as well as stability should non endure placed exclusively on Taiwan, piece ignoring the fact that Beijing also has the responsibility," said Brian Su, deputy director-general of the Taipei Economic as well as Cultural Office inwards New York.
"President Tsai has been cautious inwards dealing with cross-strait relations as well as has been calling for cross-strait dialogue since she took office. Still, Beijing refuses to resume talks with Taiwan, as well as continues threatening Taiwan past times flying warplanes some Taiwan's airspace, with other provocations."
China has shrugged off objections, considering such exercises component division of its "military modernization program."
Trump's utilisation of Taiwan every bit a blood-red flag inwards the aspect of a mainland People's Republic of China he has alternately wooed as well as stung, began fifty-fifty before his inauguration. In Dec 2016, inwards an plainly carefully choreographed move, Trump, every bit President-elect, took a congratulatory call from Tsai, the starting fourth dimension straight communication betwixt American as well as Taiwanese leaders since 1979.
One of those advocating strongly for the telephone band as well as for a to a greater extent than muscular stance against mainland People's Republic of China as well as for Taiwan was Peter Navarro, straight off the presidential adviser who is seen today every bit ane of the principal architects of the massive novel tariffs targeting China.
In a Nov 2016 article inwards Foreign Policy magazine, Navarro as well as co-author Alexander Gray wrote: "The Obama administration's handling of Taiwan has been ... egregious. This beacon of republic inwards Asia is perchance the almost militarily vulnerable U.S. partner anywhere inwards the world. As far dorsum every bit 2010, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency warned that the residual of powerfulness inwards the skies higher upwardly the Taiwan Strait was shifting toward Beijing."
Taiwan officials signal out that non far away, inwards the South mainland People's Republic of China Sea, mainland People's Republic of China is actively building a string of fortified islands that could endure used to interdict critical international transportation lanes. Taiwan imports the vast mass of its stone oil supplies past times transportation inwards these real waters. And this week, on the 24-hour interval afterward Xi issued his thinly veiled alert to the US as well as Taiwan, mainland People's Republic of China sent its alone aircraft carrier grouping through the Taiwan Strait that separates the isle from the mainland.
For China, despite its vast disparity inwards size as well as population, Taiwan looms every bit real much an existential issue. Recognizing an iota of its liberty as well as independence would give renewed encouragement to centrifugal forces with whatsoever number of people as well as regions on the fringes of what is notwithstanding real much a conglomeration of republics. From Tibet to Inner Mongolia, at that spot are non-Chinese ethnic minorities lusting for greater freedom, if non independence from Beijing -- as well as who pay unopen attending to developments along the Taiwan forepart as well as spotter whether the mainland is prepared to give an inch.
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So, if Trump wants to clamp down, hard, on Chinese exports to the United States, he must recognize that the stakes volition only endure higher if closer American ties to Taiwan are stirred into this toxic broth. With Trump preparing his ain overture to Democratic People's Republic of Korea with the assist of South Korea, he may experience he no longer needs Chinese intervention to comprise the North's nuclear ambitions. He would endure dangerously wrong.
Now, to a greater extent than than ever, mainland People's Republic of China is real much a player, across the entire region. And Trump would endure wise non to allow the hotter heads of his administration, anxious to aspect upwardly a mainland People's Republic of China that volition hardly shrink from defending its ain almost profound interests, steer America's course of report inwards a tense as well as unsafe region.
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