Henry Kissinger Pushed Trump to Work With Russia to Box In China

The former secretary of state pushed one president to use China to isolate the Soviet Union. These days, he’s counseling almost the reverse—and officials are listening.
By ASAWIN SUEBSAENG, ANDREW DESIDERIO, SAM STEIN and BETHANY ALLEN-EBRAHIMIAN

Henry Kissinger suggested to President Donald Trump that the United States should work with Russia to contain a rising China.
The former secretary of state—who famously engineered the tactic of establishing diplomatic relations with China in order to isolate the Soviet Union—pitched almost the inverse of that idea to Trump during a series of private meetings during the presidential transition, five people familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast. 

The potential strategy would use closer relations with Russia, along with other countries in the region, to box in China’s growing power and influence.
Kissinger also pitched the idea to Jared Kushner, the top White House adviser whose portfolio includes foreign-policy matters, one of the sources briefed on the discussions said.
Inside the administration, the proposal has found receptive ears, with some of Trump’s top advisers—in addition to officials in the State Department, Pentagon, and the National Security Council—also floating a strategy of using closer relations with Moscow to contain Beijing, according to White House and Capitol Hill insiders. 

But the idea has been complicated by the president’s deference to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has caused countless domestic political headaches.
Both the White House and the National Security Council declined to comment. 

Kissinger's office did not return a request for comment.
The mere fact that Kissinger was given an audience to make his pitch—he’s met with President Trump at least three times since the 2016 campaign—is a testament to his tremendous staying power in top political circles, despite a controversial foreign policy track record that includes numerous accusations of war crimes. 

It also is a reflection of how dramatically geopolitical relations have changed during the course of his lifetime.

Kissinger isn’t viewed as a China hawk. 

It is well known in certain circles that he has a direct line to Chinese dictator Xi Jinping. 

And the discussions he had with President Trump appear, at least superficially, to run counter to his public pronouncements since 2017 that China’s signature Belt and Road Initiative—Xi’s vision for a China-centric world based on infrastructure and trade deals, and the object of growing Western alarm—would have a positive effect on Asia.
Kissinger is no Russophobe, either. 

He has met with Putin 17 times over the years. 

And Kissinger has repeatedly advocated for a better working relationship between Washington and Moscow. 

Of last week’s summit in Helsinki between President Trump and Putin, Kissinger said, “It was a meeting that had to take place. I have advocated it for several years.” 

He has also expressed doubt about the purpose of Russian interference in the election, and promoted a better balance of power among the world’s largest influencers.
His overall views seem to have made their way into explanations for President Trump’s affinity for Putin. 

One former Trump administration official referred to President Trump’s posture toward Putin during the Helsinki summit earlier this month as “the reverse of the Nixon-China play.”
“Russia and China are cozying up to each other and it’s a lethal combination if they’re together,” said the former official, who was familiar with the strategizing behind the summit.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, various figures in the Trump orbit—not just Kissinger—discussed a strategy of shoring up relations not only with Russia, but also with Japan, the Philippines, India, Middle Eastern countries, and others as a wide-ranging international counterweight to what was pitched as the dominant Chinese threat.
Since becoming president, Trump, those sources said, has shown varying signs of interest. 

But his actual posture toward China has remained difficult to define. 

The president has flattered the country’s political leadership, partnered with it on key foreign policy matters, and adopted a highly confrontational positions on trade. 

Anything resembling a large, cohesive “counterweight” policy has yet to gain serious traction. 

And one of the main economic levers that would be used to achieve this type of outcome—the trade deal known as the Trans Pacific Partnership—was abandoned by Trump even as Kissinger himself nominally supported it.
Internally, the fights over a China policy have been lengthy. 

Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, has long railed against a rising threat from China, and he was present during the meeting between Trump and Kissinger that took place during the transition. 

Other Trump allies who share Bannon’s pragmatic disposition include trade adviser Peter Navarro, Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Tom Cotton (R-AR), and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.
Unlike Kissinger—who stressed that relations with Russia were not an end goal itself but part of a decades long approach to revamping continental power structures—these advisers argued that the threat from China needed to be confronted in the near term. 

A congressional source familiar with the strategy said Bannon often focused on “civilizational threats that face the U.S. emanating from Arab world and China.” 

Indeed, Bannon has backed populist, nationalist parties throughout Europe based in large part on appealing to identity politics and international threats. 

Those same parties have often embraced and praised Putin.
Among Capitol Hill foreign policy circles, the source added, the view is that Kissinger’s motivations for pursuing the reverse of his own policy from the 1970s are “more intellectually honest and honorable” than Bannon’s. 

Though a separate source familiar with the transition talks said the two individuals had a fair amount of overlap in terms of their world views.
“[Kissinger] did not advocate a partnership with Russia,” said the source. 

“But he was absolutely adamant that 17 years of the global war on terror had taken up too much time and focus. And he is a huge believer that this is a great power struggle [with China].”
The issue for lawmakers, as is often the case with Trump, has been trying to discern whether his attempts to cozy up to Russia are driven by broader concerns about Beijing’s growing influence, or by an affinity for Putin himself.
That certainly has been the case in the wake of the Helsinki summit, during which Trump sided with Putin’s denials of Russian election meddling over the assessment of his own intelligence agencies.
The episode prompted sharp criticism from lawmakers, including some who said that any talk of strategically working with Putin to combat China is merely a face-saving measure to explain away the president’s conduct. 

But according to Capitol Hill sources, it also left several lawmakers wondering whether the administration was attempting to make a larger move on China.
“I’m hesitant to characterize what is being legitimately discussed because this administration is such an incoherent dumpster fire it’s impossible to ascertain what’s legitimate discussion, what’s not legitimate, what’s being discussed in one part but may have no traction elsewhere,” a source on Capitol Hill said.
Trump advisers have considered the Kissinger-type approach to east Asia since the 2016 campaign. But a source close to the White House noted that the “key word is ‘considering’ as they know that any move to implement it would, at least currently, be met with a massive backlash, and rightly so.”
The source added that several senior White House officials believe that “Russia would be a ‘useful counterweight’ to China.” 

But not everyone buys into that theory.
It’s not just that Russia has played a largely counter-productive role vis-a-vis the United States, and much of the rest of the liberal world order, over the last few years. 

It’s that their points of leverage over China are limited largely to weapons, oil, and cyber intrusions.
“I understand the idea of a collective approach to boxing China in and trying to integrate it into an order consistent with our interests,” said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. 

“I just don’t see Russia as currently oriented playing a role in that.”
Still, U.S. officials have become increasingly vocal in their warnings of the threat that China poses and the need for a comprehensive strategy to combat it. 

At the Aspen Security Forum last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray called China “the broadest, most challenging, most significant threat we face as a country,” and Michael Collins, deputy assistant director of the CIA’s East Asia mission, said that China is waging a “cold war” against the United States.
“It is clear the Trump administration views the rise of China—from issues of trade, its continued quest to dominate Asia and displace U.S. power to building a military that can challenge Washington’s most advanced weaponry—as its number one national security challenge,” said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest. 

“I am not shocked that they would consider Russia a potential partner in containing China’s rise.”
In theory, the partner-with-Russia-to-combat-China strategy—regardless of its motivations—is not entirely without merit, experts say, if only to break up the partnership developing between Putin and Xi themselves.
“China and Russia have a very similar worldview right now and they're supporting each other pretty strongly. I don’t see a lot of cracks,” said Lyle Goldstein, a Russia and China expert at the U.S. Naval War College.
Russia and China often pursue complementary agendas and support each other at the United Nations Security Council, said Abigail Grace, who until recently worked on the Asia portfolio at the National Security Council. 

“I don’t think that the level of China-Russia collaboration is necessarily within U.S. interests,” Grace said.
But while Moscow and Beijing have cordial relations and share many strategic objectives, there are areas of relative distrust between them, including over Central Asia. 

China has made major economic and diplomatic inroads in the region with its Belt and Road Initiative, which includes Central Asian nations a key part of its strategy. 

But Russia views that region as within its traditional sphere of influence. 

While it hasn’t stood in the way of Xi’s overtures to countries like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, it has declined to join the initiative despite China’s invitation.
Beyond Central Asia, it’s also clear that with its enormous economy and rapidly expanding military ambitions, China is on a trajectory to greatly surpass Russia’s global heft—a trajectory that could compel Russia to seek partnerships (informal or otherwise) elsewhere.
“Looking out over long term, there is a belief in the administration that Moscow will see Beijing as its greatest geopolitical foe—just like Washington does now—and that could set up a rapprochement with America,” said a source close to the White House. 

“But it is very far out into the future.”
But there’s a very good reason the “reverse Nixon” strategy hasn’t been implemented yet. 

It’s just not geopolitically realistic.
“China is the greater long term strategic challenge,” said John Rood, the Under secretary of Defense for Policy, at the Aspen Security Forum. 

“But in many ways, Russia is the larger near term threat because of the overwhelming lethality of its nuclear arsenal and also because of some the behavior that the Russian government has exhibited.”
Russia is at times a flamboyant foe of the European Union and the United States, seeking to sow disruption and division within and among Western allies. 

It also has been highly disruptive of U.S. politics making it an illogical partner for an ambitious attempt to help preserve the current international system.
“At the moment, with Russia having tried to attack our democratic institutions as well as still acting like a rogue state in Ukraine and Syria, the chances of a U.S.-Russia alliance to take on China are slim to none,” said Kazianis.
“But know this: time and circumstance can change minds and win hearts. I would not be shocked if in seven to 10 years this does indeed take place.”

Per un pugno di renminbi

Liu Xiaobo’s death exposes Western kowtowing to China’s despots
By ROWAN CALLICK
Serving both God and Xi Jinping: Angela Merkel and Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Hamburg.

The global response to the death of Chinese Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo and his crudely stage-managed cremation and burial at sea will be viewed by chroniclers as a historic watershed.
Democracy and universal human rights are losing their champions, and their power as paradigms.
The world is changing fast. 

At the start of this year — when Xi Jinping received an adulatory welcome from the World Economic Forum elite at Davos with his speech championing “economic globalisation” — it was clear that the centre of international gravity was shifting.
The rush of international leaders to laud the launch of Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative followed. 

Those accorded the loudest fanfares in Beijing for that event were Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte and Russia’s Vladimir Putin — three champions of the new populist authoritarianism.
The G20 in Hamburg followed, at which German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who accorded Xi an especially warm welcome, implicitly contrasted favourably the Chinese “win-win” cliche with the US view of globalisation, which she said was “about winners and losers”.
The G20’s vacuous communique was suffused with the vocabulary and views with which Beijing feels at home.
Soon, China will host the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa for a summit.
Each step in this impressive progress underlines China’s authoritarian culture as the new global norm.
A year ago, the International Court of Arbitration lambasted China’s occupation and arming of the South China Sea. 

But Beijing refused to participate in the process, said it would ignore any finding and would plough on with its strategy. 

Which it has.
The bureaucracies of the Western leaders, including Australia, carefully considered how to respond to Liu’s imminent death.
The result: national leaders said nothing, foreign ministers regretted Liu’s demise and asked if his widow, Liu Xia — charged with no offence — might be allowed to travel outside China.
When Liu was awarded the Nobel in 2010, symposiums were held, speeches made, Western leaders commented widely.
Erna Solberg, the Prime Minister of Norway, which hosts the Nobel Peace Prize and was punished economically by China after Liu’s award, said nothing in the weeks after news of his liver cancer leaked out. 

The former Amnesty International leader there, Petter Eide, said “silence was a sign of support for the Chinese authorities”.
The question that governments, corporations, and especially now also universities, in Western countries ask is not what would Jesus do — which they would think risible — but what would China do.
Journalists and satirists in the West are widely praised for their bravery in poking fun at Donald Trump, the softest target since King George III.
How many have joked about Xi Jinping, the most powerful person in China since Mao Zedong, and in some regards even more powerful? 

In China, even to draw a cartoon or caricature of him is at least banned, and is likely to lead to something worse.
People in the West wonder whether their companies, or economies, will be cut off from China’s wealth if they venture criticisms or make fun.
Even firms like Facebook that have leveraged off their maverick founding myths, end up playing Chinese rules. 

Apple just conceded control over its Chinese data to comply with Beijing’s new cybersecurity regulations as it stores information for its customers in China with a government-owned company.
Trump read out an impressive speech on Western values before the G20. 

But he negated every word when he breathlessly replied — a few hours after Liu had died — to a question about Xi: “He’s a friend of mine. I have great respect for him … a great leader … a very talented man … a very good man … a terrific guy. I like being with him a lot, and he’s a very special person.”
Russia is slipstreaming China’s elevation, sequestering Crimea just as China has done with the South China Sea, as the two form a tight unit in controlling the UN Security Council.
The video of US student Cody Irwin joking in fluent Mandarin about Trump — to laughter and applause — at his graduation speech at Peking University this month has been widely praised.
But when Chinese student Yang Shuping praised America’s “fresh air” and democracy in her commencement speech at Maryland University in May, she faced an avalanche of enmity.
Appropriate lessons are being drawn. 

In career opportunity terms, Irwin has cemented his future, Yang has sealed her fate.
The Sinologist David Shambaugh wrote last month: “Until China develops values that appeal universally, it will lack one of the core features of global leadership.”
However, it is the Western world that is losing contact with core values. 

It is valuing more highly the control and the authority that China is championing.

Enemy of my enemy: Trump's comments on Russia are intended for Chinese ears

By John Moody 

President Donald Trump listens to a reporters question at Trump Tower in New York, Monday, Jan. 9, 2017.

Of the many unconventional moves and remarks President Donald Trump already has made before taking office, one that rattles both Republicans and Democrats is his admiration for Vladimir Putin and his seeming determination to improve U.S.-Russian ties.
But what if this most unusual leader is following his businessman’s instincts, and taking a page from the diplomatic playbook of two brilliant world power players: Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.
While no one – even Trump – thinks Putin is our BFF, the new president has been, even before he announced his candidacy, critical of China’s double standard when it comes to trade with the U.S. and manipulation of its own currency. 

Trump’s remarks about wanting to strengthen cooperation with Putin to jointly combat Islamic terrorism make a kind of rough-hewn sense. 

And holding out the bait of weakening economic and diplomatic sanctions imposed by the current Obama Administration are exactly the signals of respect that Putin desperately wants.
While the echo chamber of most cable news channels and newspaper editorial pages has reacted with shock and horror, Trump’s denunciation of China versus his pragmatic stance on Russia recalls the historic and visionary Triangular Diplomacy employed by Nixon and Kissinger to rebalance relations among China, the Soviet Union and the U.S.
Early in Nixon’s first term, he and Kissinger, his then-national security adviser, decided to capitalize (no pun intended) on the fissure between the world’s two biggest communist powers. 

China, for its part, had concluded by 1969 that it could not prevail against the Soviet Union militarily and sent various signals that it was interested in warming the diplomatic thaw between Beijing and Washington.
Seeing the potential benefits for the U.S., and to back the Soviets into a corner, Nixon loosened trade restrictions, and began negotiating quietly about restoring diplomatic ties. 

In 1971, China allowed the U.S. to send a table tennis team to compete in China, the photo-op famously known as “ping pong diplomacy.” 

Kissinger made a secret trip to China to meet with its top leaders, to announce it would support China’s membership in the United Nations. 

A year later, Nixon flew to Peking, crowning one of the 20th Century’s most significant diplomatic courtships. 

Even the mainstream American press, then as now, no friends of Republican presidents, conceded Nixon and Kissinger had executed a brilliant move that strengthened the U.S. and hobbled the Soviets, who could not hope to resume the close relations they once had with communist China.
Whether Trump is planning a similar reshuffle in relations with China and Russia is unclear. 

But his harsh rhetoric about China’s trade policies and expansion of its influence in Southern Asia, versus his kinder, gentler approach to Russia has China on its guard. 

The state-run China Daily newspaper last week warned the incoming administration not to push Beijing too far, or face consequences.
That is something the Chinese never had to tell Barack Obama. They didn’t and don’t fear him. 

They might not fear Trump either, but they are wary. 

And that’s a good thing.

Western civilization vs. Chinese barbarity

President Trump stresses his desire for warmer ties with Russia, while steadily bashing China

By Nicole Gaouette

A battle between Chinese despotism and the forces of Western civilization

Washington -- President Donald Trump has been playing global favorites on Twitter.
He has showered praise on Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling him "very smart!," and dismissed charges that Moscow tried to hack the election process -- even as he's bashed China for currency manipulation, skewing trade and failing to rein in North Korea.
It's unusual enough for a president to try to sway foreign policy before he's in office, let alone in 140-character bursts. 

While Trump aides have said some of his statements shouldn't be taken "literally," the tweets offer insight to his foreign policy views and raise a question: When both China and Russia are challenging US power globally, why does he favor Moscow and not Beijing?
Trump's positions on Russia and China mark a sharp turn from current policies -- and that might to the point. 

Trump and much of the Republican establishment have made clear they aim to dismantle Barack Obama's "legacy". 

Trump is also looking to use international relations in pursuit of economic ends.
Some analysts point to the possibility that Trump is taking a deeply strategic approach; others say he simply fails to understand the crucial importance of long-standing US alliances. 

At the least, it is an approach that contrasts with dovish Obama, who has tried to find areas of common interest with China and to isolate Russia for a series of international violations.

Russia has conducted a stealth invasion of Ukraine, annexed Crimea and is believed to have supplied the missile that brought down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, shot down over Ukraine in 2014.
Moscow has supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his country's civil war, including in the bombing of civilians in Aleppo.

The Russian military has buzzed US aircraft and ships. 

And the US intelligence community found with "high confidence" that Russia was behind hacking during the presidential election campaign meant to sow doubts about American democracy.
And yet Trump speaks warmly of Putin and his desire for better cooperation with Russia, publicly dismissing the hacking allegations and accusing the intelligence community of acting politically.

Russian officials have said they were in contact with the Trump campaign throughout the election.

Matt Rojansky, head of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center, said one reason could be Trump's belief that the US should do more work with Russia to defeat terrorism and his view of that challenge as a "civilizational battle between radical Islam and, broadly speaking, the forces of Western civilization."
Trump and his aides, particularly his national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, are much more comfortable including Russia under the Western civilization umbrella than Republicans such as Arizona Sen. John McCain and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, Rojansky said. 

That will cause friction, possibly sooner rather than later.

If Trump's stance on Russia might fray some of his alliances in Congress, he's already put European allies on edge with his warmth toward Putin and questions about the worth of NATO. 

He's also unnerved Asian allies by questioning the cost of helping Japan and South Korea defend themselves.

Some analysts have suggested Trump is practicing a sophisticated version of the "triangular diplomacy" former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President Richard Nixon used to play the Soviet Union and China off against each other in the 1970s.
But the two nations are no longer bitter enemies and instead have a well-defined, if mutually wary, relationship.
China has targeted the US with cyberattacks. 

Beijing has pushed US companies in China to give up proprietary technology, it has contested US claims to freedom of navigation through Asian waters, its military has buzzed US naval vessels and Air Force jets, and it recently stole a US underwater drone.

If Trump seems to look the other way on Russian transgressions, China gets no free pass.
The President often charges that Beijing steals American jobs with unfair trade practices. 

"China has been taking out massive amounts of money and wealth from the U.S. in totally one-sided trade, but won't help with North Korea. Nice!" he tweeted Monday. 

Soon after winning the presidency, he antagonized Beijing by holding a phone conversation with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen.
Trump has long made China a bogeyman, accusing it in a 2012 tweet of having created the concept of global warming in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive. 

He has particularly fixated on China's economic practices, blasting it on trade and currency throughout the presidential race and blaming it for the loss of American jobs. 

Trade and job losses were central rallying cries of his campaign.

Analysts See Trump Comments on One China as Part of Bigger Game

By William Ide and Joyce Huang

Combination of three 2016 file photos showing Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, left, U.S. President Donald Trump, center, and Xi Jinping.

BEIJING — President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the United States doesn’t necessarily need to be bound by a “One China” policy, which was key to the establishment of diplomatic ties between Washington and Beijing, has the Chinese leadership on edge and some wondering whether a rethink is on the horizon regarding relations with Taiwan.
Analysts say a Trump presidency could see ties with democratically ruled Taiwan enhanced, but doubt there will be a serious departure from the policy, noting the wide range of areas where the world’s two biggest economies cooperate and how much they need each other. 

What it does suggest, they say, is that a bigger game is afoot.
Trump told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday: “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.”

One China rethink
When the United States established ties with China in 1979, it cut diplomatic relations with Taiwan, recognizing the communist-led People’s Republic of China as the sole government of China, or “one China.”

President Nixon sits between Chinese Premier Chou En-lai and Chiang Ching, wife of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, at a cultural show in the Great Hall of the People, Feb. 22, 1972 in Peking as an interlude in the talks between the two countries leaders.
From Beijing’s perspective, “One China” means Taiwan is part of its own territory.
The United States acknowledges that position, but also maintains close cultural and commercial ties with Taipei. 

It also supplies Taiwan with military hardware and some have long felt that ties should be enhanced.
Trump’s recent phone call with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, a first by any president since Washington switched ties to Beijing, and now remarks about the “One China” policy — which has been a centerpiece of relations for decades -- has some feeling that just might happen.
Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen speaks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump through a speaker phone in Taipei, Taiwan. 

“I don’t think that he will overturn the ‘One China’ policy completely, and only recognize Taiwan and not the People’s Republic of China, but it is possible that he will elevate relations with Taiwan,” said Zhang Lifan, a Chinese historian and commentator in Beijing.
Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political scientist at Hong Kong Baptist University, said there are those in the United States who would like to make relations with Taiwan more transparent and more like “state to state relations.”
“Of course the Chinese will not be happy, but I think it is a way of telling the Chinese, the ‘One China’ policy that the Chinese adhere shouldn’t be taken for granted,” he said. 

“There are a number of things that were decided for convenience in the 1970s and in the 80s, which may be revisited today because the reality on the ground is very different.”
The United States and China established ties at a time when both Taipei and Beijing were under authoritarian rule. 

Since then, however, Taiwan has become one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. 

And the political paths of both are diverging, not converging.
A man rides a scooter near containers at Keelung port, northern Taiwan, Oct. 30, 2015.
Still, just how many politicians in the United States might support a complete overhaul is unclear, Cabestan adds, as the policy has long enjoyed bipartisan support.
Tseng Chien-yuan, an associate professor at Chung Hua University in Taiwan, said it seems that Trump is treating the “One China” policy more like a political bargaining chip.
"I think he [Trump] will have to adjust his policies in accordance with China's reactions and look after the U.S.'s best interest,” Tseng said.

No good option
Zhang said that when Trump spoke with Taiwan’s president it was like he was starting to take bets, but now with his remarks about “one China” and trade, he has clearly put his cards on the table.
Trump’s comments have sparked a strong backlash from Beijing, with the foreign ministry voicing its “serious concern” and state media suggesting that if he did dump the policy as president, China could sell weapons to “forces hostile to the U.S.” 

The remarks have also whipped up concern from foreign affairs "experts" in the United States and abroad because Beijing sees the policy as the “political bedrock of Sino-U.S.” relations.
Zhang calls the move very strategic.
Terry Branstad, the governor of Iowa, speaks to reporters at Trump Tower after a meeting with Donald Trump. Branstad would later be named the United States ambassador to China. 

“He is not president yet and speaking as president-elect he can say what he wants,” Zhang said. Making the comments now gives China some time to be angry and to contemplate its options as well as the costs associated with its choices.
China has never renounced the use of force to take Taiwan and fulfill its claim that the self-ruled island is part of its territory, but Zhang said there are few good options for China’s communist leaders.
"If war should break out in the Taiwan Strait, there will be two consequences. 

One consequence is that the Chinese Communist Party wins a unified country,” but isolates itself from the world because of the conflict. 

“And two is that it is defeated and a new China is born,” one that is no longer ruled by the communist party.

Paramilitary policemen march at the Tiananmen Sqaure before the fourth plenary meeting of the National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, March 14, 2013.
Analysts note that while there may be a tendency from military and party hardliners in China to call for a tough response, Chinese officials and state media have so far focused more on the economic measures China could use in response and a refusal to cooperate on a wide-range of issues from Iran to North Korea.
Regardless of whether it is Washington or Beijing, in a globalized world and economy, there are few options that don’t cut both ways.
Taiwan is also watching all of this closely to make sure its interests are looked after. 

There are concerns in Taiwan that Trump’s approach could do more harm than good. 

But that really depends on how it all plays out, said Chung Hua University’s Tseng.
“If closer economic cooperation between the U.S. and Taiwan can be forged, a Trump presidency will help Taiwan break away from China’s military and economic containment,” Tseng said.

Nixon in reverse
Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972 spearheaded the beginning of what led to the switch in ties from Taiwan to China. 

At the time, one key reason for establishing relations with Beijing, analysts note, was to counter Russia. 

Now that may be happening again, but in reverse.
Mao Zedong shake hands with Richard Nixon after their meeting in Beijing 22 February 1972 during the U.S. President's official visit in China.

“The Trump administration is trying to start with China as a way of maybe putting more pressure on China, isolate China from more countries, from key partners like Russia, bringing back Russia,” said Hong Kong Baptist University’s Cabestan.
He added that while there are many uncertainties, what is clear is that Trump is prepared to play hardball with China on both trade and strategic issues.
“There is a whole game at play here, which is unfolding,” he said.
On the campaign trail, president Trump sent clear signals that he wants to improve ties with Russia. On Tuesday, he appointed ExxonMobil Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson as his Secretary of State. 

Tillerson is friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with Rex W. Tillerson, chairman and chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil Corporation at their meeting in the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, Monday, April 16, 2012.