Two Chinas Policy

Trump hints US could end 'One China' policy
By MARK LANDLER

President Donald J. Trump before a rally last week in Cincinnati. 

WASHINGTON — President 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.
Mr. Trump has been praised by some Republicans for taking a new look at China policy.
Not since 1972, when Richard M. Nixon and Mao Zedong enshrined the One China principle in the Shanghai Communiqué, has an American president so publicly and explicitly questioned the agreement, which resulted in the United States’ ending its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan in 1979.
The Chinese government issued no immediate response to Mr. Trump’s remarks.
But the comments are likely to reignite a debate that erupted nine days ago when he took a congratulatory phone call from President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan.
At first, Mr. Trump played down the implications of the call, saying he was just being polite.
Later, his aides said he was well aware of the diplomatic repercussions of speaking to Taiwan’s leader.
Lobbyists for Taiwan, including the law firm of former Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, spent months laying the groundwork for the call.
On Friday, China’s senior foreign policy official, Yang Jiechi, met with Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, whom Mr. Trump has designated as his national security adviser, according to a person told about the meeting.
It was not clear what the two men had discussed.
Some Republican foreign policy experts — including John R. Bolton, who is believed to be a front-runner for the post of deputy secretary of state — have praised Mr. Trump for shaking up a decades-old diplomatic agreement.
As a candidate, Ronald Reagan criticized the decision to abrogate recognition of Taiwan; after his election, he invited a delegation from Taiwan to attend his inauguration, antagonizing Beijing.

President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan speaking on the phone with Mr. Trump this month at her office in Taipei, Taiwan.

In 1982, as president, Mr. Reagan pushed for the so-called Six Assurances, the fifth of which was a statement that the United States would not formally recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan.
Still, he abided by the terms of the Shanghai Communiqué.
Mr. Trump did not appear worried about inflaming Beijing.
He repeated in the Fox News interview many of the criticisms he has made about China, particularly on trade and currency manipulation.
He also emphasized what he said was China’s unwillingness to help curb the nuclear ambitions of its neighbor North Korea — an issue that foreign policy experts believe could confront Mr. Trump as the first geopolitical crisis of his presidency.
The president said he would not tolerate having the Chinese government dictate whether he could take a call from the president of Taiwan. 
He reiterated that he had not placed the call, and described it as “a very short call saying, ‘Congratulations, sir, on the victory.’”
“Why should some other nation be able to say I can’t take a call?” Mr. Trump asked.
“I think it actually would’ve been very disrespectful, to be honest with you, not taking it.”
The Chinese government, which once viewed Mr. Trump favorably as an alternative to the hawkish Hillary Clinton, has struggled to respond to Mr. Trump’s unorthodox approach.
China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, initially played down the significance of the phone call, calling it a “petty action by the Taiwan side” that he said would not upset the longstanding policy of One China.
But as Mr. Trump has repeated his campaign criticisms of China — and as his statements about Taiwan have rippled throughout the region — Beijing has noticeably hardened its tone.
It warned him last week, in a front-page editorial in the overseas edition of People’s Daily, that “creating troubles for the China-U.S. relationship is creating troubles for the U.S. itself.”