Month: December 2016

Every despot on the planet has his number

by digby

This new Eichenwald piece for Newsweek on Trump’s foreign entanglements and conflicts of interest is a must-read. This excerpt about the Trump organization’s ties to the odious president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte show just how absurd it is that Trump believes he can avoid conflicts of interest simply by “turning the business over” to his sons and telling them not to make any “new deals” while he’s president. “New deals” are not the only issue at stake, by far.

Recall that Trump had a very friendly chat with Duterte reportedly telling him that he thought he was handling his “drug war” the “right way.”

The Trump family has an enormous financial interest in keeping Duterte happy. Trump Tower at Century City in Makati, Philippines, is on the verge of completion, with potential buyers having placed deposits on at least 94 percent of the condominiums, according to Century Properties, the Trump Organization’s business partner there. During the U.S. presidential campaign, Trump’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric traveled to Makati to shovel some dirt in a ceremony to celebrate the structural completion of the building; a photograph of the two men shoveling alongside top Century Properties executives was posted on the building’s website. (On that same website, a line of jewelry by Trump’s daughter Ivanka is offered for sale, and it is expected to be available for purchase at the $150 million property.) As with almost every property with Trump’s name on it built over the past decade, his company is not the developer; it merely sold its name to Century Properties to use on the building. Although details of the transaction are not public, contracts for other Trump branding deals reviewed by Newsweek show that they require a multimillion-dollar up-front payment as well as up to 25 percent of the developer’s revenue, year after year. So, under the deal, Trump’s children will be paid millions of dollars throughout their father’s presidency by Jose E.B. Antonio, the head of Century Properties.

Duterte recently named Antonio the special government envoy to the United States. The conflicts here could not be more troubling or more blatant: President Trump will be discussing U.S. policy in Southeast Asia with one of his (or his children’s) business partners, a man who is the official representative of a foreign leader who likens himself to Hitler. Also note that the Trump family has an enormous financial interest in Duterte’s deadly campaign: Rooting out crime in the Philippines is good for the real estate values.

The Trump family’s dealings in the Philippines will set off a constitutional crisis on the first day of Trump’s presidency, if anyone in the federal government decides to abide by the law. There is serious debate as to whether Trump will be violating the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause—which prohibits office holders from accepting gifts from foreign states—since the majority of his company’s business is with other corporations and developers. That is not the case in the Philippines. The man writing millions of dollars’ worth of checks to the Trump family is the Duterte government’s special representative to the United States. To argue that these payments will be constitutional if they are paid to the Trump children, and not to Trump personally, is absurd. This conflict demands congressional hearings, and could be an impeachable offense.

And that’s nothing compared to what’s going on with Turkey:

In 2008, the Trump Organization struck a multimillion-dollar branding deal with the Dogan Group, a large corporation named after its influential family, for a two-tower complex in Istanbul. In 2012, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan presided over the opening ceremonies and met with Trump. But in June of this year, Erdogan called for the Trump name to be removed from the complex because of his anti-Muslim rhetoric; the Turkish president also said presiding over the dedication had been a terrible mistake. Erdogan later told associates he intended to impede America’s use of a critical Air Force base in Turkey should Trump win the presidency, a Middle Eastern financier with contacts inside the Turkish government told Newsweek. The financier spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing relations with his official contacts.

In July, members of the Turkish military attempted a coup. Erdogan crushed the plotters, and his government has arrested more than 36,000 suspected participants and shut down 17 media outlets. The primary culprit, Erdogan declared almost immediately, was Fethullah Gülen, a 77-year-old Muslim spiritual leader who has lived in Pennsylvania’s Poconos region for many years. Erdogan demanded that the Obama administration extradite Gülen to face charges related to the coup.

Erdogan believes he has leverage with Trump, who’s trying to build a huge office tower in Istanbul, which makes his business partners in Turkey vulnerable to harassment or even arrest.

Gülen and Erdogan were allies until 2013, the year a series of corruption investigations erupted regarding government officials accused of engaging in a “gas for gold” scheme with Iran; Erdogan claimed the man with whom he once shared common goals was the driving force behind the inquiries, which he called an attempted “civilian coup.” Erdogan has placed Gülen on country’s list of most-wanted terrorists, but the Obama administration has not acted on the extradition request, and it has told the Turks they would have to produce proof of Gülen’s involvement in the coup attempt before he could be sent to Ankara, the Turkish capital.

Enter Donald Trump. The day of the U.S. election, the news site The Hill published an article by Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn, who has since been named as Trump’s national security adviser. “The forces of radical Islam derive their ideology from radical clerics like Gülen, who is running a scam,” Flynn wrote. “We should not provide him safe haven…. It is imperative that we remember who our real friends are.” (Flynn, who runs a consulting firm hired by a company with links to the Turkish government, seems unaware that radical Islamic groups like the Islamic State, or ISIS, are more likely to decapitate someone like Gülen.)

That article, according to the financier with contacts in the Turkish government, led Erdogan and his associates to believe a Trump administration would not demand more evidence to justify deporting Gülen. So, almost immediately, Erdogan stopped condemning Trump and instead voiced support for him. The day after the U.S. election, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim issued a statement directly linking his country’s good wishes for Trump with its desire to get Gülen back. “We congratulate Mr. Trump. I am openly calling on the new president from here about the urgent extradition of Fethullah Gülen, the mastermind, executor and perpetrator of the heinous July 15 coup attempt, who lives on U.S. soil.”

In a telephone call that same day with Erdogan, Trump passed on compliments to the Turkish president from a senior official with his company’s business partner on the Istanbul project, whom the president-elect was reported to have called “a close friend.” The official, Mehmet Ali Yalcindag, is the son-in-law of Dogan Holding owner Aydin Dogan and was instrumental in the development of the Trump complex in Turkey. That Trump delivered messages from his business partner to Erdogan has been reported in numerous media outlets in Turkey, including some closely tied to the government, and has not been denied by Turkish officials or the Trump transition team.

According to the Middle Eastern financier with contacts in the Erdogan administration, Trump’s casual praise of a member of the Dogan family prompted Erdogan to believe this relationship might give him leverage over the president-elect. In the past, Erdogan has placed enormous pressure on the Dogan Group, which owns media operations that have been critical of him, by imposing a $2.5 billion tax fine and calling for supporters to boycott its newspapers and television stations. Then, just weeks after hearing Trump’s kind words about his Dogan business partner, Erdogan lashed out at the Turkish company again.

On December 1, authorities detained Barbaros Muratogl, a 28-year veteran of Dogan who was the company’s representative to Ankara. His alleged crime? Maintaining links to the movement led by Gülen, thus connecting the Dogan executive to the attempted coup. In response, Dogan shares fell 8.6 percent. (The purported evidence against Muratogl: public accusations from an editor at a newspaper owned by a company that competes with Dogan.)

Once again, follow the dominoes as they tip over. Erdogan is frustrated in his efforts to grab Gülen; Trump praises a Turkish executive who works with his business partner there, Dogan. A few weeks later, a senior Dogan executive is detained on threadbare allegations. If Erdogan’s government puts more pressure on the company that’s paying millions of dollars to Trump and his children, revenue flowing from the tower complex in Istanbul could be cut off. That means Erdogan has leverage with Trump, who will soon have the power to get Gülen extradited. The financier with contacts in the Turkish government explained the dynamic to Newsweek: “Erdogan has something he believes Trump wants, and Trump has someone Erdogan desperately wants.”

It isn’t just Russia folks. It’s every despot on the planet.

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I wish I didn’t believe this could be true

by digby

Trump, as you know by now, appeared as a performer on the WWE and is, by all accounts a big fan of the show. Get this:

Back in 2007, WWE ran a storyline that culminated with CEO Vince McMahon being blown up in a limo. You don’t need me to tell you that McMahon is still alive and was not actually blown to pieces, because you aren’t a moron who thinks wrestling is real. Apparently, the same cannot be said for our future president.

Last night, a 2008 clip from the Opie and Anthony Show began recirculating. In the clip, WWE wrestler/McMahon son-in-law Triple H briefly mentions the limo-explosion storyline, and then reveals that Donald Trump—a longtime pro wrestling performer, mind you—called McMahon’s office to find out if he had really died after the explosion aired:

Maybe they were lying about Trump calling in. I hope so. But it’s unnerving enough to know that the president elect of the United States was a pro-wrestling performer much less that it’s entirely believable that he would fall for a scripted wrestling story line. But look at all the other nonsense he believes. Why not this?

Your president ladies and gentlemen:

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“Hey, look at my African American over here!” 

by digby

Rush Limbaugh was talkin’ bout Trump and Kanye meeting today:

“Kanye West is the prophet of low information voters. Why wouldn’t you want to hang out with Kanye West?”

I don’t pretend to fully understand what he was getting at there other than the fact that he believes that “low information voters” are all hip-hop fans, if you know what I mean.

Kanye West is undoubtedly only one of about 17 hip hop fans in the country who finds Trump appealing. And that’s just because he’s a multi-millionaire. If Trump is fishing for support in that pond he’s going to be very disappointed, whether it’s African Americans or millennials, this isn’t his crowd.

But then we know Rush wasn’t talking about music, don’t we?

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A cancer on the country

by digby

So Rick Perry’s going to head the Department of Energy for Donald Trump. This guy.

Meet your new Energy Secretary: Rick Perry, the man who forgot this job even existed. (by @todddracula) pic.twitter.com/YChpvIsDhL

— CAFE (@cafedotcom) December 13, 2016

He did have one fine moment in the last few years. It was when he called out Donald Trump for the cretinous demagogue he is. He was once one of those “brave” independent men of integrity in the GOP who stood up to Donald Trump. (Or if you prefer, one of those Republican toadies who refused to defied the brilliant, iconoclastic appeal of Donald Trump in favor of sheer partisan politics.) Either way, he spoke out quite sharply against his new boss at one point.

Oh well.

Here are the best moments of that speech:

These [former presidents] were all fallible men. But they were great men. And they all possessed a goodness and decency that allowed them to rise above the petty, the personal and the partisan for the good of the nation.

The White House has been occupied by giants. But from time to time it is sought by the small-minded — divisive figures propelled by anger, and appealing to the worst instincts in the human condition.

In times of trouble, there are two types of leaders: repairers of the breach and sowers of discord.

The sower of discord foments agitation, thrives on division, scapegoats certain elements of society, and offers empty platitudes and promises. He is without substance when one scratches below the surface.

He offers a barking carnival act that can be best described as Trumpism: a toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued.

Let no one be mistaken — Donald Trump’s candidacy is a cancer on conservatism, and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised and discarded.

It cannot be pacified or ignored, for it will destroy a set of principles that has lifted more people out of poverty than any force in the history of the civilized world — the cause of conservatism…

We will be no better off with a Republican divider in the White House than the current Democrat divider in the White House.

Donald Trump the reality television star is a great generator of ratings. But Donald Trump the candidate is a sower of division, wrongly demonizing Mexican-Americans for political sport.

It is wrong to paint with a broad brush Hispanic men and women in this country who have fought and died for freedom from the Alamo to Afghanistan. He scapegoats Hispanics to appeal to our worst instincts, when we need a president who appeals to our best.

This is not new in America.

In the 1840’s the “Know Nothings” emerged as a political movement, scapegoating Irish and German immigrants for the problems of the nation.

They were obsessively anti-Catholic, so much so that when the Pope sent marble for the building of the Washington Monument, they smashed it to pieces and helped delay its construction for 35 years.

These people built nothing, created nothing. They existed to cast blame and tear down certain institutions. To give outlet to anger.

Donald Trump is the modern-day incarnation of the know-nothing movement.

He espouses nativism, not conservatism. He is negative when conservatism is inherently optimistic.

He would divide us along bloodlines, when conservatives believe our policies will work for people of all backgrounds.

He has piqued the interest of some Republican voters who have legitimate concerns about a porous border and broken immigration system. But instead of offering those voters leadership or solutions, he has offered fear and soundbites. This cannot stand.

Conservatism doesn’t foment agitation through identity politics. That’s what Democrats do. But as a supporter of socialized medicine, the stimulus package and Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump is quite suited to follow the Democrats’ example.

I, for one, will not be silent when a candidate for the high office of president runs under the Republican banner by targeting millions of Hispanics, and our veterans, with mean-spirited vitriol.

I will not go quiet when this cancer on conservatism threatens to metastasize into a movement of mean-spirited politics that will send the Republican Party to the same place it sent the Whig Party in 1854: the graveyard.

As a veteran, I took offense to his attack on Senator McCain, and I found lacking his defense that he spent a lot of money on veterans’ parades.

Donald Trump was born into privilege. He received deferments to avoid service in Vietnam. He breathes the free air thousands of heroes died protecting. And he couldn’t have endured for five minutes what John McCain endured for five and a half years.

Think what you want about Senator McCain’s politics, but let no one question his service to our country.

Here was a man offered the chance to go home. He refused, knowing it could cost him his life. There was no way he would leave before any man captured before him. This is the embodiment of duty, honor, country. Mr. Trump does not know the meaning of those words.

But most telling to me is not Mr. Trump’s bombast, his refusal to show any remorse for his comments about Senator McCain, but his admission that there is not a single time in his life that he sought the forgiveness of God.

A man too arrogant, too self-absorbed, to seek God’s forgiveness is precisely the type of leader John Adams prayed would never occupy the White House.

Adams, Lincoln, FDR — they all went before God on bended knee. They all held this office of great power with humility.

When a candidate under the Republican banner would abandon the tradition of magnanimous leadership of the presidency, when he would seek to demonize millions of citizens, when he would stoop to attack POWs for being captured, I can only ask as Senator Welch did of Senator McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

My fellow Republicans, beware of false prophets. Do not let itching ears be tickled by messengers who appeal to anger, division and resentment.

Resentment is the poison we swallow that we hope harms another. My fellow Republicans, don’t take the poison.

Scripture tells us “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”

The candidate who wins the Republican nomination for president will articulate the best vision of “a house united.”

It will be based on a conservatism that works, that appeals to our better angels, that believes in the power of individuals, through hard work and thrift, to improve our lives.

We need a president who rises above personal grievances, petty differences, raw partisan politics. Who puts the nation first, who inspires Americans to believe again and produce again and dream again.

We must move past the empty calories of Trumpism, and return to conservatism.

But hey, it’s not a deal-breaker, amirite??

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I wrote about yet another of Trump’s loony hires for Salon this morning:

One of Donald Trump’s top contenders for a cabinet post, former United Nations ambassador John Bolton, went on TV over the weekend and suggested that he thought it was possible that the alleged Russian hacking of Democratic emails before the election was actually a “false flag” — a ruse — perpetrated by the Obama administration. When pressed, Bolton he told a Fox News anchor, “We just don’t know. But I believe that intelligence has been politicized in the Obama administration to a very significant degree.” On Monday Bolton walked this back, saying he didn’t mean to suggest that it was necessarily the Obama administration but merely some entity other than the Russians. OK.

This wasn’t Bolton’s first foray into conspiracy theories. He has a long history of them. Indeed, many of Donald Trump’s advisers do. His chief political strategist, Steve Bannon, ran one of the top conspiracy sites on the internet, Breitbart News, so there’s no doubt about his embrace of fake news and dark fantasy. Dr. Ben Carson, Trump’s choice for housing secretary, is a self-described reader of “conspiracy books,” drawn to fables suggesting that the Biblical figure Joseph built the Egyptian pyramids to store grain and that the LGBT movement is a communist plot. Trump transition team member Kris Kobach, an anti-immigration zealot who is also the Kansas secretary of state, has mused that Latinos might conduct ethnic cleansing if allowed to become a majority.

These are all domestic advisers, and while that’s not a good thing by any means, it’s slightly less unnerving than the fact that Trump’s foreign policy staff are full blown tin-foil hatters too. We have learned a fair bit about the lurid imagination of incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn, who has eagerly passed on rumors that Hillary Clinton was involved with occult practices and pedophilia and has retweeted white supremacist, anti-semitic and Islamophobic propaganda. His son, Michael Flynn Jr., had to leave the transition team after it became clear that he was spreading fake-news stories about the fictitious #Pizzagate scandal and was involved with some very unsavory white nationalist groups online. His father’s unstable personality has been the subject of many profiles over the past few months, which make clear that he has extremist views across the board. He doesn’t seem to be in any danger of losing his job.

Even that might not be so frightening if he were surrounded by a team of level-headed professionals who could keep an eye on the details and make sure he didn’t go off half-cocked. But if his designated second-in-command, incoming deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland, is an example of the people he’s going to rely on, we’ve got a big problem. She’s a conspiracy theorist too.

McFarland was last in government during the Reagan era as part of the communications team. After a lengthy hiatus to raise her kids has spent the last decade as a television personality on Fox News. She reportedly got the job after making friends with Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. in the halls of the network and received a recommendation from Henry Kissinger, who remembered her from the Nixon administration. Trump saw her on TV which is always a top recommendation in his book. It turns out that McFarland shares a similar worldview with Flynn and Trump, believing that the US should seek a close relationship with Russia and put everything it has into the battle against Islamist terrorism. She likes torture, likes it a lot, and considers failing to profile Muslims to be “political correctness.”

The problem is that this particular job is apparently extremely arduous and requires a heroic level of energy and experience to coordinate foreign policy, intelligence and national security and develop policy recommendations across all levels of the executive branch. According to Politico, there are few people in the field who believe McFarland has the right kind of temperament or experience for the job.

As I mentioned, she’s a conspiracy nut as well. She ran a quixotic Republican primary campaign for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat in 2006 and claimed that Clinton was so frightened of her candidacy that for reasons which are not obvious she had helicopters flying over McFarland’s house and kept her under surveillance.

Politico related this story from 2009:

“They’re going to want something for their money. They’re not our sugar daddy,” McFarland told a tea party crowd in Times Square, referring to America’s more than $1 trillion in debt to Beijing. “So, 10 years from now, you might not have American Independence Day. … The Fourth of July might just end up being another day on the calendar.”

Unless voters “throw the bums out,” McFarland said, “we can all start learning Chinese.” She then read aloud Mandarin phrases from an index card, including ones for “How can I help you?” and “What do you want from me?”

McFarland pushed the Benghazi meme very hard, claiming that the administration made a political decision not to rescue the embassy personnel and accusing Clinton of having blood on her hands.

And this bizarre recording of a 2011 conversation between McFarland and Gen. David Petraeus in Afghanistan, obtained by the Washington Post, suggests collusion between Fox News and the general in a number of different respects, including a purported message from Roger Ailes saying that he and Rupert Murdoch wanted Petraeus to run for president. This was evidently so embarrassing to Ailes that he threw McFarland under the bus saying it was supposed to be a joke that she misunderstood.

In other words, K.T. McFarland is yet another Fox News extremist who’s spent way too much time in the right-wing fever swamps. That’s probably fine for someone who has a show on Fox News and gives speeches to the Tea Party. She’s got something to say and it’s a nice lucrative gig. But the job of deputy national security adviser is supposed to be held by someone who is highly skilled at managing a vast bureaucracy and analyzing and synthesizing information without prejudice or bias. This person, to say the least, is not that.

So far, in fact, there doesn’t seem to be one Trump hire who has those skills. It looks like we’re about to find out whether the government can be run solely by people who only watch cable news and read Breitbart, the Drudge Report and Alex Jones’ InfoWars. It’s quite an experiment.

Those who forget the lessons of psychohistory
by Tom Sullivan

Smirking Chimp’s Jeff Tiedrich links to a Guardian account of how the press mis-covered rising political stars in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
— George Santayana, The Life of Reasonhttps://t.co/yPttmXsM1C pic.twitter.com/uCLNcmLCF2

— (((Jeff Tiedrich))) (@jefftiedrich) December 13, 2016

The press largely dismissed them as curiosities, John Broich writes, with most coverage of Benito Mussolini, for example, “neutral, bemused or positive in tone.” For the exception, Broich links to this stinging account by Ernest Hemingway of Mussolini at a conference in Lausanne, Switzerland. “The biggest bluff in Europe,” Hemingway wrote of the Italian leader:

The Fascist dictator had announced he would receive the press. Everybody came. We all crowded into the room. Mussolini sat at his desk reading a book. His face was contorted into the famous frown. He was registering Dictator. Being an ex-newspaper man himself he knew how many readers would be reached by the accounts the men in the room would write of the interview he was about to give. And he remained absorbed in his book. Mentally he was already reading the lines of the two thousand papers served by the two hundred correspondents. “As we entered the room the Black Shirt Dictator did not look up from the book he was reading, so intense was his concentration, etc.”

I tip-toed over behind him to see what the book was he was reading with such avid interest. It was a French-English dictionary – held upside down.

But what damage even a big bluff can do. Too late the world discovered its miscalculation. As Tiedrich alludes, we may be about to repeat that mistake of history.

In Isaac Assimov’s “Foundation” series, “psychohistorian” Hari Seldon predicts the collapse of the Galactic Empire and develops a multi-generational plan for shortening the coming new Dark Ages from a projected 30,000 years to under 1,000, ending in the rise of a new order.

Democrats could use somebody like Seldon about now. Someone with a plan for shortening the coming age of Trump. Someone to introduce a little disaster progressivism, a la “The Shock Doctrine,”, who might turn the coming disorder to their advantage. But that might take Democrats out of their natural, defensive crouch. It’s more of a Shelbyville idea.

If Pat McCrory’s T-party legislature in North Carolina is any indication, Democrats on Capitol Hill face a kind of trench warfare. Beyond fundraising for their next election, they will find little time for thinking beyond fending off the next bayonet charge. If there is any strategic planning at all, it is behind doors lefty bloggers rarely peek behind. One suspects is there isn’t much to see anyway.

With all those think tanks and foundations in and around Washington, D.C., one might expect something resembling strategery is taking place. But since the preponderance of them are funded by right-wing billionaires, not by the left, well, here we are.

Look over there, another Trump tweet.

A little gallows humor for a dark time

by digby

Courtesy of SNL

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He’s so busy tweeting he doesn’t have time to liquidate

by digby

Well lookee here:

President-elect Donald Trump is postponing until next month a previously announced news conference to outline how he’ll handle his far-flung business operations while in the White House, according to senior Trump transition officials. 

Trump had planned to make the announcement Dec. 15 but wants more time because he’s been occupied with filling out his cabinet and top administration posts, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. He’s preparing to reveal his choice for secretary of state as soon as Tuesday, they said.

He said today that he’s still trying to figure out a way for Ivanka and Jarod to work in the White House with him. (Jarod promises to put his real estate holding in a blind trust which means he will have to be literally blinded.) Newt Gingrich says that the GOP can just issue a waiver of the nepotism and conflict of interest laws for the Trump family.  Which is nice. They might as well just say all ethics laws only apply to Democrats and make it simple.

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Weaponizing intelligence

by digby

For those of you who don’t tweet, I thought I’d share these hypothetical scenarios from national security reporter Barton Gellman. Just FYI:

When questioned about whether it’s simply likely they are exaggerating their claims, he says this:

@quinnnorton Always possible. I lean against because they’re so openly at odds with PEOTUS. IC doesn’t seek that out. Hates it.

— Barton Gellman (@bartongellman) December 12, 2016

It’s impossible to know what’s really happening but important to grasp just how serious it might be.

I recognize all the partisan aspects of this. But the election results are not going to be overturned, that much I know. History will judge all that, but it is history now whether we like it or not. I suppose it might be politically helpful in some respects if Trump’s victory is seen as illegitimate, but I doubt that will stop him and the Republicans from doing whatever they want.

What happens in the future as a result of all this, however, is very important. Trump’s unusual attitude toward Russia, the opaqueness of his financial dealings which may have something to do with all this and the people he’s chosen like that loon Michael Flynn and possibly Exxon’s Rex Tillerson, means that we have good reason to be suspicious of this relationship. I don’t know if we’ll ever get to the bottom of it but sweeping it under the rug is not a very wise choice.

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Meanwhile, Trump moves toward WWIII

by digby

This is extremely important to understand so that we can be prepared when WWIII starts:

President-elect Donald Trump has just said that he considers America’s One China policy a bargaining chip, to be traded off against other things that the United States wants from China. In his description:

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 … 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.

In other words, the One China policy isn’t a big deal — it’s a bargaining issue, like many other issues. So is Trump right?

No. The big deal is this: The relationship between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan is an ambiguous one, where the People’s Republic claims Taiwan as part of its national territory but is prepared for the present to let Taiwan continue in existence, while Taiwan also has an interest in not clarifying its relationship with the People’s Republic too precisely. Both the PRC and the United States adhere to the notion of One China, but they mean very different things by it. Undermining the status quo could lead to full-scale military conflict between the United States and China over an island that both see as vital to their national interests and whose unique status they have managed well up to this point.

What does “One China” actually mean?

For China, it means the “one China principle.” From the very beginning of the PRC, its leaders have maintained that historically and according to the terms of the Japanese surrender in 1945, Taiwan was a part of the sovereign state of China ruled from its capital on the mainland. The government on Taiwan — which was founded by the side that was defeated in China’s civil war — is seen as an illegal occupation by the remnants of a defeated regime. China’s leaders view the recovery of Taiwan as close to being a sacred task that would accomplish the restoration of the Chinese nation, the final victory of the Communist Party, and the end of the country’s exploitation by foreign powers that began in the 19th century.

China formulates the principle as follows — that “there is only one China in the world; the mainland and Taiwan both belong to one China; and China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are indivisible.” This is why the PRC demands that states with which it has diplomatic relations break official ties with Taiwan and recognize the PRC government as the sole legal government of China. Other states — and international organizations — that have dealings with Taiwan are seen as interfering with China’s domestic affairs. PRC law says that the PRC can use force against acts by Taiwan aimed at independence or resistance to unification, and China’s military buildup over the last two decades has been driven by the desire to deter Taiwan from separating or, if necessary, to use force to unify it with the mainland.

It means something very different to the U.S.

The United States’ One China policy is radically different. In the 1950s, the United States recognized the defeated Nationalist government in Taiwan as the legitimate government of all of China and encouraged other states to do the same. As time went on, proposals that the United States recognize two Chinas were vehemently rejected by the PRC. When the U.S. normalized relations with China in 1979, it cut diplomatic and official ties with the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan, recognized the mainland as the “sole legal government” of China, withdrew U.S. forces from Taiwan and allowed a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan to expire. The American position on the status of Taiwan island was left undefined.

The United States defines the content of its One China policy as consisting of the three Sino-American communiqués issued at the time of the Nixon visit (1972), mutual establishment of diplomatic relations (1978) and the attempted resolution of the question of American arms sales in 1982, as well as the Taiwan Relations Act passed by Congress in April 1979 to establish a legal foundation for “unofficial” relations with Taiwan after recognition of the PRC and de-recognition of the ROC.

Subtle diplomatic nuances can have big consequences

The United States has made it clear that it does not consider the political entity on Taiwan (whether it is called “Taiwan” or “the ROC”) to be a state within the international community. Here it agrees with the PRC. However, it does not accept Beijing’s contention that the island of Taiwan, or its government and people, are parts of China. The formal U.S. legal position is that the island’s status is “undetermined.” This means, remarkably, that since 1979, the United States has conducted a relationship with a government it does not officially recognize, that rules a state it does not acknowledge exists, on an island the status of which is undetermined. Such are the subtleties of international diplomacy.

On the one hand, the United States respects Beijing’s position that the ROC is not a state for international purposes. On the other, it does not accept Beijing’s sovereignty over the people and government of Taiwan.

This complicated diplomatic dance has crucial real-world consequences. It means that U.S. policy toward Taiwan has been guided by America’s interests in the relationship with Taiwan, the PRC and Asia as a whole, rather than being constrained by Chinese charges of foreign interference in the nation’s domestic affairs. Since 1979, under the United States’ One China policy a broad and varied relationship has developed with the island. For example, the U.S. and Taiwan have presences in each other’s countries that have diplomatic privileges and immunities. The laws of the United States apply with respect to Taiwan, “in the manner that the laws of the United States applied with respect to Taiwan” before the breaking of relations and the terms of most pre-1979 treaties have been maintained. There is a significant amount of mutual trade and investment; and according to the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States is mandated to make available defensive arms to Taiwan, to maintain Taiwan’s capacity to resist any use of force or other coercion that would jeopardize its security and well-being, and after consultation between the president and Congress to “determine … appropriate action by the United States” if there is any such threat. There is extensive consultation between military and civilian officials; Taiwan’s president is permitted to make “transit stops” in the United States on the way to other destinations under agreed rules; and officials at the Cabinet level have visited Taiwan. Finally, while the United States accepts the position that Taiwan is not a sovereign state, it supports the ROC’s “meaningful participation” (rather than membership) in international organizations where statehood is a requirement.

In short, the United States has built a much closer relationship with Taiwan than with many acknowledged nation-states, and it has done so despite the Chinese claim that both China and Taiwan come under “one China.” After all, one country doesn’t sell arms to or maintain quasi-diplomatic relations with a subdivision (think California) of another nation state.

Since 1979, the United States has looked to maintain the status quo between the PRC and Taiwan by saying that it will intervene if either side takes unilateral action to change the status quo (e.g. if the mainland tries to coerce Taiwan into unification, or Taiwan declares independence). It is officially neutral as to how the PRC and Taiwan ultimately resolve their differences, simply insisting that it has to involve a mutually agreed upon peaceful settlement.

While the U.S. position is driven by a variety of political interests, China’s position is driven by a desire for national unity that China’s leadership has defined as existential and nonnegotiable. This means that the U.S. approach flouts essential elements of the Chinese position. Moreover, not only is Washington maintaining a relationship that contravenes China’s One China policy, but it has apparently put itself in a position of setting the conditions for the resolution of the conflict. The reason this has not led to overt hostilities is because all sides have behaved with restraint to maintain a very fragile peace. They know full well how sensitive these differences are.

This is why Trump’s suggestion that One China is another bargaining chip, which the United States can play or not play as it likes, is both misleading and risky. On the one hand, it apparently misses the subtle, but extremely significant, differences between the American “one China policy” and the Chinese “one China principle.” On the other, it endangers the central tenet of American policy in the area — the maintenance of the status quo. The Trump transition team has already referred to Tsai Ing-wen as “President of Taiwan.” This publicly undermines the only aspect of the One China issue where the United States and China actually agree — that Taiwan is not a state, while starkly exposing the reality of the quasi state-to-state relationship that the American One China policy obscures. By using Taiwan’s status as a negotiating ploy, Trump is doubling down on this dangerous strategy. China’s vital national interests are in conflict with U.S. policy, and stable relations are fragile, because all the parties are unhappy with the present situation. If the incoming administration persists in its apparent careless indifference, it runs the risk of grossly destabilizing U.S.-China relations, and even risks war.

Trump is a simpleton who believes that the world is just a schoolyard where he is the playground bully and he makes the rules. He greatly overestimates his own abilities.

This, by longtime China observer/expert James Fallows is interesting if you want to further explore this subject.

And this piece, also recommended by Fallows, is well worth reading too. This is very important:

This isn’t just a set of political restrictions imposed by a paranoid party — one that has always been obsessed with controlling and contorting language. It’s bone deep in mainland Chinese, a conviction drummed into them by childhood and constantly reasserted. Plenty of elements of party propaganda are inconsequential to most Chinese or even mocked. Taiwan isn’t one of them.

I have lived in China for 13 years, and in that time I have talked with perhaps three mainlanders who thought that Taiwan had the right to determine its own future. Everyone else with whom I’ve discussed the issue, from ardent liberals to hardcore Marxists to the politically apathetic, has been fervently against the idea that Taiwan could ever be considered a country. It’s an idea as weird, taboo, and offensive to the majority of Chinese as proposing the restitution of slavery would be to Americans — not for its moral value but for going against everything they hold dear about their country.

Most of the time, when Beijing says something has “hurt the feelings of 1.3 billion Chinese,” it’s petulant bullshit; on Taiwanese issues it comes closer to the truth.Most of the time, when Beijing says something has “hurt the feelings of 1.3 billion Chinese,” it’s petulant bullshit; on Taiwanese issues it comes closer to the truth. On the WeChat Moments feed of a former student, a bright and intellectually curious teenager, I saw her rage at finding the Taiwanese flag on the wall of a dorm at her new American university. “IT’S NOT A COUNTRY!” she indignantly declared, her anger echoed by her (Chinese) schoolmates follow-up comments.

This is, of course, a deeply unthinking attitude. It’s a product of decades of propaganda about China’s (real but century-old) humiliations at the hands of foreign powers. It arises, too, from a complex of neuroticisms and resentments about Taiwan’s wealth and success in the past, now mixed with smugness at the mainland’s new power. And for ordinary Chinese, it’s a result of the constant lessons — beginning with kindergarten rhymes and reinforced every week by their parents, peers, and teachers — about China’s supposed oneness and the evil of those who would split the country.

It’s an unhappy and bitter part of Chinese nationalism, one that denies both the six-decade reality on the ground and the agency of Taiwanese to decide their own future. But it’s not going to disappear overnight. If the Communist Party vanished into smoke tomorrow, Chinese would still be contemptuous of Taiwanese aspirations and furious with anyone who suggested otherwise.

This indicates that the Chinese government has much less room to maneuver on this than one might assume. Letting this crazed bull run through that (pardon the pun) China shop is incredibly foolish. The Chinese government can’t just “make a deal” to “give away” something this deeply important to the Chinese people.

This is such a dangerous moment. I truly hope Trump gets a grip here and somebody persuades him to STFU. So far it’s not looking good.

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