Two Chinas Policy

Hold the phone! Donald Trump’s call to Taiwan was the right thing
By GERSH KUNTZMAN

Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen speaks on the phone with U.S. president Donald Trump. There’s a reason she’s smiling. The rest of us should be, too. 

“Hello, Madame President, goodbye 30 years of wrong-headed American policy.”
I am a relentless critic of Donald Trump, but with just a brief phone call to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, the President has done something very right: He has upset an applecart filled with worms.
Sure, the taboo conversation may be Trump’s “broken-clock” moment, after the old saying that even a stopped timepiece is right twice a day. 

But until that call, no president had (at least officially) spoken to a Taiwanese leader since 1979.
Most Americans didn’t even realize that, given how normal our relations are with Taiwan in virtually every other way. 

This is Taiwan, we’re talking about, people, not North Korea.
Taiwan — a democracy, lest we forget — is our ninth-largest trading partner. 

We did $86.9 billion in trade with these free Chinese people last year. 

And the Department of Commerce estimates that our trade with Taiwan supports 217,000 U.S. jobs.
That’s a lot more jobs than you get bribing Carrier to stay in Indiana.
I’m a little older than most of you, but when I was growing up, the State Department’s 1959 policy was still in effect. 

It stated that the capital of the China we liked was in Taiwan and that the island (which we called Formosa) did not belong to the Chinese Communists whom we didn’t like.
Then, just as Trump did last week with his phone call, Richard Nixon dispatched years of Sino-U.S. relations by visiting the mainland in 1972. 

“Nixon in China.” 

Look it up. It was a real thing.
Seven years later, Jimmy Carter officially moved our embassy from Taipei to Beijing, and the “one-China policy” was enshrined.

Donald Trump hasn’t been right about much since Election Day. But his call to Taiwan was. 

Every president since has kept up the charade — trading with Taiwan, but not recognizing its existence.
So, what did we get for all this one-Chinaing? 

Not a lot.
China remains a repressive regime that violates international trade rules, swipes our copyrights left and right like a horny indecisive man on Tinder, threatens our allies, engages in cyber-terrorism, and even builds fake islands in the Pacific in an illegal bid to alter its borders.
Oh, and China is the world’s largest polluter, thanks in part to all the cheap crap they manufacture for us.
So Trump spoke to the leader of one of our major trading partners. 

You’d think from the outrage that he had called the prime minister of Pakistan and told him, “You are doing amazing work which is visible in every way.”
Actually, Trump did that one — which was idiotic, given that Nawaz Sharif presides over what Republicans call a terrorist nation. 

OK, that was bad.
But the headlines about Trump’s chat with Taiwan’s President Tsai suggest that he messed up again:
“Trump phone call to Taiwan likely to infuriate China,” wrote Business Insider.

The other Chinese — the Communists in Beijing — have been building fake islands in the Pacific to expand their borders and, they hope, their influence.

“China lodges complaint over Trump-Taiwan call,” CNN posted.
“Trump Speaks With Taiwan's Leader, an Affront to China,” the Times added.
Yes, it was an intentionally provocative move, ending an era when America capitulates to Chinese threats to our intellectual property, to our workers and to our allies.
Officially, U.S. policy remains, “The United States does not support Taiwan independence.”
Until Jan. 20, 2017, that is.
Since Election Day, Trump’s broken clock has been wrong most of the time.
But if a simple phone call with the president of a friendly nation can piss off China, Trump may be a better negotiator than we expected.