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China Gets An Early Win Off Trump, But Many Battles Remain

China Gets An Early Win Off Trump, But Many Battles Remain

BEIJING (Reuters) – Combining public bluster with behind-the-scenes diplomacy, China wrested a concession from the United States as the two presidents spoke for the first time this week, but Beijing may not be able to derive much comfort from the win on U.S. policy toward Taiwan.

Several areas of disagreement between the superpowers, including currency, trade, the South China Sea, and North Korea, were not mentioned in public statements on Thursday’s telephone conversation between Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. In getting Trump to change course on the “one China” policy, Beijing may have overplayed its hand.

Trump had upset Beijing before he took office by taking a call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, then casting doubt on the “one China” policy, under which Washington acknowledges the Chinese position that there is only one China and Taiwan is part of it.

Trump changed tack and agreed to honor the “one China” policy during the call, prompting jubilation in China. Beijing had been working on diplomatic ways to engage Trump’s team and largely blaming Taiwan for stirring things up.

Laying the foundation for that call had been the low-key engagement of China’s former ambassador to Washington and top diplomat, the urbane and fluent English-speaking Yang Jiechi, with Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn.

“China was pragmatic and patient. It made every effort to smooth out the relationship, and it paid off,” said Jia Qingguo, dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, who has advised the government on foreign policy.

But China also made very clear Taiwan was not up for negotiation, unleashing state media to threaten war and punishment for U.S. firms if that bottom line was breached.

China has long described self-ruled Taiwan, claimed by Beijing as its sacred territory, as the most sensitive issue in Sino-U.S. relations.

Its military had become alarmed after the Trump-Tsai call and was considering strong measures to prevent the island from moving toward independence, sources with ties to senior military officers told Reuters in December.

A source familiar with China’s thinking on relations with the United States, speaking to Reuters last month, said China had actually not been too bothered with Trump’s Taiwan comments before he took office as he was not president then and was only expressing his personal view.

“If he continues with this once he becomes president then there’s no saying what we’ll do,” the source said.

TSAI’S CHILLED HEART

Despite the U.S. concession, military tensions remain.

On Saturday, the overseas edition of the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily placed a picture on its front page of Chinese warships about to embark on a new round of drills in the South China Sea, right next to an upbeat commentary about the Xi-Trump call.

The paper’s WeChat account took a harsher line, saying that with Trump getting back with the program on “one China”, Taiwan had better watch out.

“The heart of that Madame Tsai on the other side of the Taiwan Strait must at this moment be chilled to the core,” it said.

One senior Western diplomat said China had been redoubling its efforts to win over the Vatican, one of a handful of countries to retain official ties with Taiwan.

Taiwan says it hopes for continued U.S. support, and one ruling Democratic Progressive Party official told Reuters that the “one China” policy had not affected previous U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, even as U.S. presidents’ commitment to the island have waxed and waned.

Xi has put great personal political capital into seeking a solution over Taiwan, an issue that has festered since 1949 when defeated Nationalist forces fled to the island after losing the civil war to the Communists. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.

But in its relations with Washington, the risk for Beijing remains that its diplomatic win over “one China” will be short lived, as Trump will not want to be seen as having caved in.

“What he’s shown the Chinese is he’s willing to touch the ‘third rail’ of U.S.-China relations,” said Dean Cheng, China expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.

“Beijing can’t predict what he’ll do next – and he’s only been in office three weeks. What is he going to do on trade and other economic issues?”

U.S. officials said the affirmation of the “one China” policy was an effort to get the relationship back on track and moving forward.

But Trump’s change of tack may be seen by Beijing as a climbdown, said Tom Rafferty, the China Regional Manager for the Economist Intelligence Unit.

“Mr Trump is erratic and will not appreciate the suggestion that he has been weak.”

(Additional reporting by Michael Martina, and J.R. Wu in Taipei and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

IMAGE: A combination of file photos showing Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) at London’s Heathrow Airport, October 19, 2015 and U.S. President Donald Trump posing for a photo in New York City, U.S., May 17, 2016. REUTERS/Toby Melville/Lucas Jackson/File Photos

White House: ‘One China’ Policy Should Not Be Used As Bargaining Chip

White House: ‘One China’ Policy Should Not Be Used As Bargaining Chip

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House on Monday insisted that Washington’s “one China” policy should not be used as a “bargaining chip” with Beijing after President-elect Donald Trump said the United States did not necessarily have to be bound by its long-standing position that Taiwan is part of China.

Signaling further resistance Trump will face in Washington if he tries to overturn a principle that has underpinned more than four decades of U.S.-China relations, Republican U.S. Senator John McCain said he personally backed the “China policy” and no one should “leap to conclusions” that the president-elect would abandon it.

“I do not respond to every comment by the president-elect because it may be reversed the next day,” McCain told Reuters when asked about Trump’s statement in an interview broadcast over the weekend.

Trump set off a diplomatic firestorm when he told Fox News: “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.” This followed an earlier protest from China over the Republican president-elect’s decision to accept a telephone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Dec. 2.

The issue is highly sensitive for China, which considers Taiwan a renegade province, and Beijing expressed “serious concern” about Trump’s latest remarks.

It called the “one China” policy the basis for relations, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned against moves to damage China’s “core interests,”  saying that “in the end, they are lifting a rock only to drop it on their feet.”

Some U.S. analysts warn that Trump could provoke a military confrontation if he presses the Taiwan issue too far. Scott Kennedy, director of the Project on Chinese Business & Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington called Taiwan “the third rail of U.S.-China relations.”

“DISRUPTIVE EFFECT”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the United States is committed to the “one China” principle and will not use the Taiwan issue to gain leverage in any dealings with Beijing.

“The United States does not view Taiwan and our relationship with Taiwan as a bargaining chip,” he told a daily briefing, calling Taiwan a “close partner.” “And bargaining that away is not something that this administration believes is our best interest.

“Disrupting this policy,” he said, “could have a disruptive effect on our ability to work with China in those areas where our interests do align. That reflects the high priority that China puts on the policy and on Taiwan.”

While saying the “one China” policy should remain intact, McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and an outspoken critic of Democratic President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, said that “somebody should hold China responsible” for its behavior with regard to Taiwan, Hong Kong, island building in the South China Sea and “propping up” North Korea.

After Trump’s phone conversation with Taiwan’s president, the Obama administration said senior White House aides had spoken with Chinese officials to insist that Washington’s “one China” policy remained unchanged.

The State Department’s senior diplomat for Asia, Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel, was due to speak to China’s ambassador to Washington on Monday, the State Department said.

Trump has tempered his strong criticisms of China and call to Taiwan’s president by announcing plans last week to nominate a long-standing friend of Beijing, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, as the next U.S. ambassador to China.

However, he is also considering John Bolton, a former Bush administration official who has urged a tougher line on Beijing, for the No. 2 job at the U.S. State Department, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Bolton has said the next U.S. president should take bolder steps to halt China’ military aggressiveness in the South and East China seas and consider  a “diplomatic ladder of escalation” that could lead to restoring full diplomatic recognition of Taiwan.

(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom, Jonathan Landay, Doina Chiacu and Eric Walsh; Writing by Matt Spetalnick a Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and by Jonathan Oatis)

Trump Says U.S. Not Necessarily Bound By ‘One China’ Policy

Trump Says U.S. Not Necessarily Bound By ‘One China’ Policy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said the United States did not necessarily have to stick to its long-standing position that Taiwan is part of “one China,” questioning nearly four decades of policy in a move likely to antagonize Beijing.

Trump’s comments on “Fox News Sunday” came after he prompted a diplomatic protest from China over his decision to accept a telephone call from Taiwan’s president on Dec. 2.

“I fully understand the ‘one China’ policy, but 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,” Trump told Fox.

Trump’s call with President Tsai Ing-wen was the first such contact with Taiwan by a U.S. president-elect or president since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, acknowledging Taiwan as part of “one China.”

Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade province and the subject is a sensitive one for China.

Chinese officials had no immediate reaction to Trump’s remarks.

After Trump’s phone conversation with Taiwan’s president, the Obama administration said senior White House aides had spoken with Chinese officials to insist that Washington’s “one China” policy remained intact. The administration also warned that progress made in the U.S. relationship with China could be undermined by a “flaring up” of the Taiwan issue.

Following Trump’s latest comments, a White House aide said the Obama administration had no reaction beyond its previously stated policy positions.

In the Fox interview, Trump criticized China over its currency policies, its activities in the South China Sea and its stance toward North Korea. He said it was not up to Beijing to decide whether he should take a call from Taiwan’s leader.

“I don’t want China dictating to me and this was a call put in to me,” Trump said. “It was a very nice call. Short. And why should some other nation be able to say I can’t take a call?”

“I think it actually would’ve been very disrespectful, to be honest with you, not taking it,” Trump added.

Trump plans to nominate a long-standing friend of Beijing, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, as the next U.S. ambassador to China.

But Trump is considering John Bolton, a former Bush administration official who has urged a tougher line on Beijing, for the No. 2 job at the U.S. State Department, according to a source familiar with the matter.

In a Wall Street Journal article last January, Bolton said the next U.S. president should take bolder steps to halt China’ military aggressiveness in the South and East China seas.

Bolton said Washington should consider using a “diplomatic ladder of escalation” that could start with receiving Taiwanese diplomats officially at the State Department and lead to restoring full diplomatic recognition.

In the Fox interview, Trump brought up a litany of complaints about China that he emphasized during his presidential campaign.

“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,” Trump said. “You have North Korea. You have nuclear weapons and China could solve that problem and they’re not helping us at all.”

Economists, including those at the International Monetary Fund, have widely viewed China’s efforts to prop up the yuan’s value over the past year as evidence that Beijing is no longer keeping its currency artificially low to make Chinese exports cheap.

RAISING ‘LIKELIHOOD OF MISUNDERSTANDING’

The Global Times, an influential tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, said in an editorial that Trump was “naive like a child on diplomacy” and that the ‘one China’ policy “could not be bought or sold”.

When the time comes, the Chinese mainland will launch a series of “decisive new policies toward Taiwan”, the paper said.

“We will prove that all along the United States has been unable to dominate the Taiwan Strait and Trump’s desire to sell the ‘one China’ policy for commercial interests is a childish urge,” it said.

Wang Yiwei, an international relations professor at Beijing’s elite Renmin University, said Trump was possibly using the Taiwan issue to try and strike a bargain with the United States over trade.

“He wants to get the best possible trade deal with China he can so that he can boost the U.S. economy,” Wang said.

Some U.S. analysts warned that Trump could provoke a military confrontation if he presses the Taiwan issue too far.

“China is more likely to let the whole relationship with the United States deteriorate in order to show its resolve on the Taiwan issue,” said Jessica Chen Weiss, an associate professor of government at Cornell University and an expert in Chinese nationalism.

“When the decision to end a decades-long practice is made with so little warning and clear communication, it raises the likelihood of misunderstanding and miscalculation and sets the stage for a crisis between the United States and China over Taiwan,” Chen Weiss said.

Mike Green, a former top adviser on Asia to former President George W. Bush, said ending the “one China” policy would be a mistake because it would throw the U.S.-China relationship into turmoil and jeopardize Beijing’s cooperation on issues such as North Korea.

But Green, who is now with the CSIS think tank, said he did not believe that Trump intended to go that far and there was “logic to serving Beijing notice that he will not be dictated to on issues like Taiwan.”

“President Obama was too accommodating to Beijing early on and it reduced his leverage as China asserted itself on issues like the East and South China Seas later,” Green said.

On Sunday, China’s top diplomat, State Councilor Yang Jiechi was traveling to U.S. neighbor Mexico, according to the official news agency Xinhua, but Mexican officials could not offer details.

Mexico has been deepening ties with China, which is partly funding a multi-billion dollar wholesale mobile network while China Offshore Oil Corporation took two of the eight blocks of deep water oil fields offered in a historic auction this month.

(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Jeff Mason and Veronica Gomez in Mexico City; and Michael Martina and Christian Shepherd in Beijing; Editing by Alan Crosby, Peter Cooney and Lincoln Feast)

IMAGE: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a “Thank You USA” tour rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S. December 9, 2016.  REUTERS/Mike Segar