THE REAL RISK BEHIND TRUMP’S TAIWAN CALL

by admin · December 3, 2016

If you work in foreign affairs, you learn that a highly unexpected event is often the result of intent or incompetence. (You also learn that what looks, at first, like intent often turns out to be incompetence.) In the Donald Trump era, we may need a third category—exploitation—which has elements of both.

In his first semiofficial act of foreign policy, President-elect Trump, on Friday, lobbed a firework into the delicate diplomacy of Asia by taking a phone call from Taiwan’s President, breaking thirty-seven years of American practice in a way that is sure to upset relations with China. It wasn’t clear how much he intended to abruptly alter geopolitics, and how much he was incompetently improvising. There is evidence of each; in either case, the way he did it is very dangerous.

Some background: Taiwan broke away from mainland China in 1949, and the two sides exist in a tense equilibrium, governed by decades of diplomatic agreements that serve to prevent war in Asia. Under that arrangement, the U.S. maintains friendly relations with Taiwan, while Presidents since Ronald Reagan have deliberately avoided speaking directly with Taiwan’s President because the U.S. formally recognizes only the Beijing government.

When news broke of Trump’s phone call with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, foreign-policy experts were, unsurprisingly, appalled. Since his election, Trump has conducted a series of phone calls with foreign leaders, without seeking expertise from those at the State Department and the National Security Council who monitor the details of those relationships. On Wednesday, he told Pakistan’s President that he would do whatever he could to help him—despite America’s strong interest in preventing Pakistan from doing many things it would like to do in India and Afghanistan. To use an analogy that Trump would recognize, it’s akin to arriving for a negotiation without first asking the value of the assets, the cost of the transaction, or the previous terms of engagement.

The problem, in this case, is far more about the manner of Trump’s move than the substance of it. One can make a credible argument for seeking to improve relations with Taiwan and for pushing Beijing to reduce its effort to isolate it. Though expert reaction to the Taiwan call was generally negative, the move was applauded by a subset of conservative Asia specialists who have long pushed for the U.S. to draw closer to Taiwan as a check on China’s expanding power. Daniel Blumenthal, a China specialist at the American Enterprise Institute who has no connection to the Trump team, told me it was a “good move by Trump” that is “both morally and strategically correct.” “They are being isolated, and it is smart policy to not allow that. Everyone, including Beijing, benefits from high-level [U.S.] communication with Taiwan . . . Our thinking on this issue is so outdated.”

When Trump discovered that he was being mocked for taking the call, he tweeted what he seems to have thought would be a mitigating explanation: “The President of Taiwan called me today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency. Thank you!” If he meant to imply that the incoming call was a surprise, then he either was lying or had been misled; Taiwan’s press had already published news of a “scheduled” call hours earlier. The Taipei Times reported, “Trump reportedly agreed to the call, which was arranged by his Taiwan-friendly campaign staff after his aides briefed him on issues regarding Taiwan and the situation in the Taiwan Strait, sources said.”

In the hours that followed, it became clear that Trump may have been manipulated into doing something he doesn’t understand. Michael Crowley, of Politico, noted that the former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, who favors a tilt away from Beijing, visited Trump Tower on Friday for undisclosed reasons. Bolton has argued for “playing the Taiwan card” to pressure Beijing. In a January op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, he wrote,

The new U.S. administration could start with receiving Taiwanese diplomats officially at the State Department; upgrading the status of U.S. representation in Taipei from a private “institute” to an official diplomatic mission; inviting Taiwan’s president to travel officially to America; allowing the most senior U.S. officials to visit Taiwan to transact government business; and ultimately restoring full diplomatic recognition.

Further complicating matters, according to the blog Shanghaiist, Trump and his family are currently trying to win a lucrative contract with a Taiwanese city: “A representative from the Trump Organization paid a visit to Taoyuan in September, expressing interest in the city’s Aerotropolis, a large-scale urban development project aimed at capitalizing on Taoyuan’s status as a transport hub for East Asia, Taiwan News reports.” Did Trump break nearly four decades of diplomatic practice to sweeten his family’s business prospects with Taiwan? His supporters, of course, say no. But the President-elect has taken no steps that would defuse that perception.

How will Beijing react? Outwardly, it could muster a response anywhere on the spectrum from furious to mildly annoyed. Initially, facing the risk of a costly confrontation, it chose the latter. China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, downplayed the Trump-Tsai call as a “small action” that will not change the bedrock of the “One China” policy. (And if you believe that response, you deserve a job in the Trump Administration.)

Whether it says it or not, China will regard this as a deeply destabilizing event not because the call materially changes U.S. support for Taiwan—it does not—but because it reveals the incoming Presidency to be volatile and unpredictable. In that sense, the Taiwan call is the latest indicator that Trump the President will be largely indistinguishable from Trump the candidate.

Trump has also shown himself to be highly exploitable on subjects that he does not grasp. He is surrounding himself with ideologically committed advisers who will seek to use those opportunities when they can. We should expect similar moments of exploitation to come on issues that Trump will regard as esoteric, such as the Middle East, health care, immigration, and entitlements.

For a piece I published in September, about what Trump’s first term could look like, I spoke to a former Republican White House official whom Trump has consulted, who told me, “Honestly, the problem with Donald is he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.” It turns out that is half of the problem; the other half is that he has surrounded himself with people who know how much he doesn’t know. Since Election Day, Trump has largely avoided receiving intelligence briefings, either because he doesn’t think it’s important that he receive them or because he just doesn’t care about them. George W. Bush, in the first months of 2001, ignored warnings about Osama bin Laden. Only in our darkest imaginings can we wonder what warnings Trump is ignoring now.

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THE REAL RISK BEHIND TRUMP’S TAIWAN CALL

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