Fresh from the New York Times:
President-elect Donald J. Trump, defending his recent phone call with Taiwan’s president, asserted in an interview broadcast Sunday that the United States was not bound by the One China policy, the 44-year diplomatic understanding that underpins America’s relationship with its biggest rival.
Mr. Trump, speaking on Fox News, said he understood the principle of a single China that includes Taiwan, but declared, “I don’t know why we have to be bound by a One China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.”
“I mean, look,” he continued, “we’re being hurt very badly by China with devaluation; with taxing us heavy at the borders when we don’t tax them; with building a massive fortress in the middle of the South China Sea, which they shouldn’t be doing; and frankly, with not helping us at all with North Korea.”
Mr. Trump is not the first incoming Republican president to question the One China policy, but his suggestion that it could be used as a chip to correct Chinese behavior sets him apart, several Asia experts said. While Mr. Trump has been praised by some Republicans for taking a new look at China policy, his stance could risk a backlash by Beijing, the analysts said.
Not since 1972, when President Richard M. Nixon and Mao Zedong enshrined the One China principle in the Shanghai Communiqué, has an American president or president-elect so publicly and explicitly questioned the agreement, which resulted in the United States’ ending its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan in 1979.
…“By putting One China up for grabs, Trump will suck all the oxygen out of the U.S.-China relationship, and it risks eventually trading away U.S. support for Taiwan for another U.S. interest,” said Evan Medeiros, a former senior director for Asia at the National Security Council.
“There are good reasons why eight presidents since 1972 have relied on the One China policy,” he added. “This is one area where the Trump team would do well to heed the lessons of history instead of bucking them in the uncertain hope of getting something.”
Jeffrey A. Bader, Mr. Medeiros’s predecessor in the Obama administration, said the One China policy had “always been seen as a foundation of the relationship.”
“Now Trump apparently sees it as part of a broader set of new transactions,” he said. “Mixing trade with an issue seen by Beijing as involving sovereignty is likely to produce an angry Chinese backlash and worsen both issues.”
It’s all about the strongmen now. Normatives count for nothing. ‘Tis the stuff of Aussie nightmares!
