While many in the US (including Trump) have come to see the "One China" policy as a fiction imposed on the USG by China, it is in reality a concession by the Chinese to accept US treatment of Taiwan as a strategic protectorate, in spite of recognizing the latter as a Chinese province. The Chinese are willing to put up with the status quo (which they justifiably see as an infringement on their sovereignty) so long as no move is made to make the separation irreversible.

Suppose California refuses to recognize Trump as the president elect, and instead inaugurated Hillary as the "legitimate" 45th US president, with the support of an international coalition that prevented the Trump administration from gaining control over the state. Does that mean there are now two legitimate US governments? Does that mean California is an independent country? Would it matter if a majority of Californians do not wish to be ruled by Team Trump (which they really don't)? If the declaration is made before Trump takes office on January 20th, does that mean his administration would have no legitimate sovereign claims to the state, because he never ruled California for a single day?

If the shoe was on the other foot, would the US agree to abide by a "One US" policy in which China acknowledges that "Americans on both sides of the Serra Nevada recognize that there is one US, and California is part of the US", while passing a national law to make it a Chinese obligation to defend California militarily if the US attempted to "invade" the state by force "without provocation"?

Let's also not forget that the ROC government ruling Taiwan today has been in continuous existence since 1911, was a charter member of the UN, where it represented China until 1971. The idea that Taiwan "separated from China" in 1949 is itself a willful mischaracterization of the actual historical event (which has been repeated so often by the press that it is generally accepted as fact here).

The Chinese civil war, fought on and off since the 1920s, was never a war of regional independence. The co-existence of ROC and PRC after 1949 was the product of a military stalemate between competing Chinese national forces sustained by outside powers (chiefly the US), not the result of democratic yearning for self-determination by the people of Taiwan (as is insinuated by so much of what is written by the Western press today). The latter is a relatively recent phenomenon, which has deftly co-opted the "strategic ambiguity" in US China policy for local political gains.

The idea that China is somehow the greater beneficiary of the "One China" policy is historically blind and rather assbackwards. Both China and the US gained enormously from this arrangement, as have the Taiwanese, though many of them have chosen to reject this for emotional reasons (mainland Chinese don't have a monopoly on such behaviors).

China has been split and reunited umpteen times in its long and complex history. Weak governance always led to national disintegration and foreign encroachment. As a result, every dynastic ruling class has derived its mandate from its ability to maintain territorial integrity. PRC inherited its international borders from ROC (including those ambiguous dashed lines in the South China Sea). PRC has far more to lose from Taiwan independence than either US or Taiwan have to gain by challenging the status quo.

This is a war China does not want to fight, but if push comes to shove, it is the ONLY war that it will not have the option of walking away from.

I have no idea what will happen if California suddenly will declare that they want to cede from the US and want to form a separate country. Of course Washington would not be happy and would try to stop the process, it is trivial. However, I doubt that it would start a war against California to "forcefully reunify" it (an option PRC has been continuously claiming in connection with Taiwan since the early 1950s). In fact the trends in the world is to consider the wishes of the local populations seeking for autonomy or independence; see more or less recent local independence referendums in Scotland or Quebec, allowed by the local ruling governments even if the opportunity of an eventual win of supporters of independence did not make them happy. This is the civilized way to solve such problems. I did not hear about the Queen or the Prime Minister of UK pointing missiles towards Edinburgh, performing military excercises at the Scottish shores, or threatening other states with interrupting diplomatic relationships in case not abiding a "One-UK" policy...

The comparison of California with Taiwan would be justified only if:

1. California would only have become member of the US under an alien, foreign regime colonizing both California and the rest of the US (let's call it "mainland US" from now on) in the same time (like it was the case during the Manchu rule of Taiwan),

2. since becoming a state (1850) California would never have been able to become an integral part of the US, it would have been something like a colony of the US under control of the US Army, the US Army officials assigned to California would have returned to "mainland US" after their terms were completed (just like it was the situation during the Manchu rule of Taiwan),

3. California would have ceded from US about 120 years ago, and since that event the government in Washington would have been unable to excercise any direct control over it;

4. during the past 70 years California would have established its own state apparatus, with its own government, own senate, own president, own army, own judiciary system, own passport, own currency, own banking system, all independent from "mainland US";

5. during the decades of separation the Californian population would have developed a strong self-recognition as an independent Californian nation different from the American nation and would have categorically rejected any attempts of the "mainland US" government towards "re-unification".

As the above are apparently not the actual situation, comparing Taiwan with a theoretical future scenario when California wants to cede from US is merely wasting time. Taiwan has never been part of China, it has been something like a colony or a military outpost of the Manchu Empire, and this era ended more than 120 years ago (1895), therefore the situation about Taiwan is totally different from California. If next week California will have the idea to cede from the US, it will establish a Californian government and a Californian army, declare the Republic of California, and introduce Californian passports for its Californian citizens, still it will be a completely different situation. Let's wait until California will cede, operate separatedly from the rest of the US for over a century, establish an own state apparatus, then we can discuss about a comparison between Taiwan and California.

Your comparison is completely bogus.
All US federal law applies in California. California voted to enter the US union. California's senators are US senators. California representatives are US congresspeople. California people vote in US elections. California people serve in the US armed forces. California uses the same currency as the rest of the US. No visa is required to visit California. California is a state, one of 50.

On the other hand, the CPC has no authority in Taiwan, it cannot write a traffic ticket. The Taiwanese people certainly would not vote to join the PRC. A CPC member, even Mr. Xi, cannot visit Taiwan without applying for a visa from the Taiwan government. No mainlander can vote in Taiwan. (Well, mainlanders can't vote even in the PRC). Taiwan uses a different currency and has its own military. Taiwan has its own congress and president. Its own banks. No PRC law has any authority in Taiwan.

These are some of the reasons your comparison is risibly dishonest.

You clearly missed the whole point of my analogy (if you did so willfully, fair-minded readers can decide for themselves which one of us is being dishonest). Obviously California has not seceded from the Union. The point I was making, if it's not obvious to you, was that "IF" California had been ruled by a self-declared "legitimate" US government, would any American accept Chinese meddling on behalf of that government? If this rival government morphs into a vehicle for California independence, and a war of secession breaks out (there WAS a precedent for this in US history after all), how would Chinese efforts to turn California into a protectorate to contain US "ambitions" go over with the rest of the country?

Why do passport requirements and currencies matter so much to you in this context anyway? Europeans travel and work freely from country to country, using the same currency, but they still belong to separate countries, ruled by separate sovereign governments. USD is used in many nations that have never been part of the US. Meanwhile, Hong Kong is recognized by all but a handful of local dissidents as part of China today (even though many PRC founders weren't even born yet when Britain took the territory from China), yet it has its own currency and separate passport requirements.

Banknotes and passports are instruments of state institutions, they do not necessarily define a nation.

Regardless, I have at no point suggested that PRC has ever had administrative control over Taiwan. You are putting up a nice straw man by insinuating that I did through my analogy. In any case, having administrative control over a territory doesn't necessarily confer sovereignty rights, nor does lack of such control signify absence of such rights. Think occupation.

The original article we are commenting on is not about whether Chinese sovereignty claims over Taiwan is legitimate (whether you like it or not, the majority of the international community acknowledges that they are), or even reasonable (many would agree with you that they are not), but about the dangers of upending the One-China policy. In this context, it is important for Americans to understand how the Chinese view this issue (so as not to underestimate Chinese resolve; which many here do, unfortunately). The analogy I provided (based on a hypothetical scenario that most Americans can easily imagine) is one way to help those readers who have an open mind on this subject to understand where Chinese intransigence and resentment originate from. If you refuse to read it in that light, I have zero desire to force you to.

CCP rules the Chinese mainland through the PRC government, which is internationally recognized today as the legitimate government of China, always at the expense of ROC. However, China is 100x older than PRC, it is certainly not synonymous with CCP, no matter what the latter's propaganda claims (I don't know what your 'CPC' is). Just as the US is not defined by the party-affiliation of its president, and Russia was never just the Leninists, and Germany was more than the Nazis.

What exists across the Taiwan Strait today is the product of political and military struggles between rival national parties, the same as what exists on the Korean peninsula and what once divided East and West Germany. Unlike the Koreans and Germans however, the Chinese rivals chose to deny each other's legitimacy, creating an ambiguous geopolitical legacy that is in the process of morphing into something completely different from what those who started it had in mind. The danger is for an ill-informed third party to try fixing something that isn't really broken, and needlessly ruin many lives in the process (there are plenty of precedents for this in recent memory, I think you would agree).

I appreciate your taking the time to read and respond to my comment, but if you are trying to pick a fight with me using some circular argument that will never go anywhere, just to assert your intellectual and moral superiority, I'm afraid you'll have to play by yourself from this point forward. :-)

Merry Christmas

Well, that was a good reply. I apologize for assuming the many differences between the situations came from a desire to conceal.

But for you or the PRC to call Taiwan a strategic protectorate or a province is a bit of falseness, since the PRC threatens to invade us every day. The only people Taiwan needs to be protected from is the PRC.

I do think the differences I listed are important and fundamentally relevant. And I would pick at the California analogy even more.

Before i complain further, I want to express appreciation of your last five paragraphs as perceptive, fair and accurate, and I think the close of your second last paragraph is the best case for continuing to tolerate this awkward, unfair, and dishonest "One China" fiction.

I do appreciate your desire to explain to US people where the Chinese intransigence and resentment comes from.

But i still maintain the analogy is a bad one. Maybe using Hawaii would have been better.
To make California match better you'd have to suppose the California government preceded the US federal government....

And suppose the more recent US government had never ruled California, rather than California seceded.....

You'd have to forget that California wanted to join the US and voted to do so.

And still then you'd have to suppose California was not connected to the mainland.....

(Maybe Hawaii would be a better match for building this analogy. Hawaii had a government before a US corporation ran ragged over the Hawaiian monarchy and the US government absorbed them.)

...And even then you'd still have to add that China would have had to of supported the Hawaiian Government for 30 years, and shed quite a bit of blood fighting off the invaders of Hawaii (Imperial Japan) as the US did for the ROC

These are a lot of differences!

So please don't think my objections to your analogy are the kind of reflexive trolling and contentiousness that we do often see. I hope I have represented objections that are authentic and relevant.

It is not the Tsai/Trump phone call or an abandonment of the fictitious "One China" policy that will kill Taiwanese and Chinese alike, it will be PRC aggression that does the killing, the unnecessary killing, (Taiwan is no threat to the PRC)

...and so despite multiple careful narratives designed to justify the PRC's threats, these narratives are still a pack of lies.

So writing from the island of Taiwan, I put the blame of the threat of war squarely on the PRC. If Taiwan wasn't the keystone of the first island chain, the PRC wouldn't care about subjugating the island. The PRC wants this island so that it can be used (say with bases in Hualien) to "break out" of the first island chain and project power into the wider Pacific. (Or, from the PRC perspective, "maintain a sphere of influence")

At the end of the day, every day, the PRC threatens to subjugate by force 23.5 million free self determining people towards this end. All that narrative of historical grievance and same ethnicity, and we are brothers blah blah blah.. are pernicious lies to provide moral ambiguity and cover for a strong arm takeover of a free people because of their real estate's location.

My own view is that as long as Taiwan does not permit foreign bases or nukes on the island, the PRC should let Taiwan alone, even permit independence. Later, if the CCP reforms, maybe they could negotiate the base in Hualien they want so badly. As the US eventually did Cuba (Bay of Pigs excepted).

Merry Christmas to you too!

PS

is this is true?
"The original article we are commenting on is not about whether Chinese sovereignty claims over Taiwan is legitimate (whether you like it or not, the majority of the international community acknowledges that they are)"

Does the majority of the world acknowledge Chinese sovereignty claims over Taiwan? I don't think so. They grudgingly accept the One China fiction imposed on them by a powerful and lucrative PRC. But like the US, consider the Taiwanese status unsettled.

Thanks for a thoughtful reply. It's way more substantive than the snarky one you wrote yesterday. From your other postings, I know you are much better informed on the subject than most of those who take part in this kind of debate from either side. I'm glad you have taken the time to at least give my analogy a fair shake this time around.

I didn't want to mention Hawaii, because that would just open another can of worms. :-)

As someone who has had a keen interest in the evolution of cross-strait relations over decades, I've heard just about every argument there is on this subject, from all view points. So I know exactly where you are coming from, and largely sympathize with you, even if I don't necessarily agree with all of your assertions.

The US is not China in either history or culture, California is not Taiwan. It is not possible to make 1:1 analogies between the two that would stand up in court (another commenter just challenged me on this using the exact same argument, perhaps he didn't see yours), yet without analogy, it is often difficult for people to understand what motivates the other side. My admittedly imperfect analogy was very limited in scope - I only sought to illustrate the perception of those who see the China/Taiwan rivalry as an internal dispute, so as to show why they would not tolerate foreign involvement. If you don't believe Americans would be just as paranoid and reactionary as the Chinese if they perceived themselves to be in a similar position, then you haven't paid enough attention to our last election!

Yes, the yearning for freedom is universal. In a fair and just world, every human being should be free to choose his/her own allegiance and destiny. Only the truly depraved would argue against this.

However, you know as well as I do that life is neither fair nor just, and one person's freedom can easily become another's encroachment (while 23.5 million Taiwanese see China as a big bully, a good portion of the 1.3 billion mainland Chinese see Taiwan as a tool by which they are being bullied by the US). This is why we have no choice but to compromise if we don't want to live in a perpetual state of war (even as some of us seem genetically predisposed to thrive on warfare).

Fiction or not, the One-China policy is such a compromise, which has been the keystone to decades of peace and prosperity across the strait, and beyond.

Why kill the goose that lays the golden egg?

Here is a thought exercise that may or may not be novel to you:

Suppose the roles between Chiang and Mao were reversed, and the Chinese civil war was one in which KMT Nationalists attempted to overthrow Mao's PRC regime, and the Communists took refuge on Taiwan with Soviet support, after which Chiang declared the founding of ROC on the mainland, putting the country firmly in the US camp from day one. What do you suppose would have happened next? Would Chiang's effort to "reclaim" Taiwan be discouraged by the US? Would there be any question as to the legitimacy of Chinese claims to the island? Would it have mattered at all whether the people of Taiwan did or did not want to be part of ROC? Had the Russians been the muscle behind the continued separation between Taiwan and China, would it change how we view the standoff today?

As far as the rest of the world "grudgingly" accepting the One-China policy goes, we must remember that when the policy was instituted in the 1970s, China was dirt poor, had no friends besides Albania, did not have a market economy, and hovered near the bottom of the world's dung heap. It was in no position to twist anyone's arm! If anything, it was the Chinese who "grudgingly" accepted a policy that effectively forced them to put off the "liberation" of Taiwan indefinitely, in exchange for cessation of open hostility from the US and economic development. The One-China policy is a mark of China's weakness, not strength. This was the central argument of my initial post!

Anyway, I think we have now arrived at a point where we must face the fact that we will probably not agree on everything (a few exchanges like these, while engaging, will not alter impressions and understandings formed over decades of personal experience). My only wish is for those who are in a position to shape events (rather than simply commenting on them like we are doing) to be at least as informed as we are, and hopefully much wiser. It's the thought that some of them may not live up to this very reasonable standard that really truly scares the crap out of me...

Wishing you a safe and peaceful 2017!

Can i tell you this?
Strangely, I have met both Mao's grandson and Chiang's grandson. Both meetings were just fleeting hand shakes.

Chiang's grandson I met at a charity event my wife was involved with (Taiwan).

Mao's grandson is a very active Christian, (there must be some irony there someplace) and I met him just last year in the United States at a rich people's church, where he was giving a talk and raising funds for his charity stuff.

I had seen the announcement in the local paper. While I am neither religious nor a member of the donor class, i couldn't resist the easy opportunity to lay eyes on him and hear the talk.

For a fleeting second there I thought that perhaps you had crossed paths with General Mao Xinyu, and were about to tell me a funny story! :-)

My guess is that in strict confidence, neither of these grandsons would profess to be great fans of their grandpas. Yet in the bloody chaos unleashed by the disintegration of the Qing Empire, only charismatic ruthless men like Mao and Chiang could have emerged triumphant in the inevitable struggle for power, just like elsewhere in the world, past and present.

Let's hope we don't end up with that kind of situation again in our lifetime, though if we learned anything from history, it's that it always repeats itself sooner or later... Therefore, "as late as possible" and "not for the final time" may be the best prospect any of us can realistically wish for.

Imagine if Mao and Chiang had made peace (or if Chiang had been overwhelmingly victorious), and China was unified within the original Qing Empire boundary (as claimed by the ROC), and by some miracle, it would have the population it has today, but with Taiwan's per capita GDP and democratic society. Would it behave as a benign regional hegemon, or something different? What would its impact be in the world beyond? What would have become of sino-US relations?

Someone should write a script for this in the style of "The Man in the High Castle"; I bet it would make for interesting story-telling, which could challenge many of our preconceptions.

cheers

Hey, that first sentence was funny. (No, i was referring to Jining Kong)

And I have wondered the same thing as you wondered in your second last paragraph.
Maybe Chiang was right in his attempt to focus exclusively on Mao and let the Americans defeat the Japanese. If he had won, what would China be like today? Of course, there is not telling, and billions have wondered the same thing.

My father (now approaching 96 years old) met Chiang; father got a medal from Chiang, he still has it. Dad thinks very highly of Chiang. How much does that medal has to do with his high opinion?...actually, probably not much. Dad's opinion is probably genuine, and relatively uninfluenced by the award. Dad isn't much swayed by things like that.

I do think Chiang probably got a raw deal from Stillwell.
Stilwell simply hated Chiang, considered him hopelessly corrupt, and that really hurt Chiang's cause. At least some, let's say a lot of that bad blood was Stilwell's fault. Stilwell was viciously insulting in public and private. I'm sure you know the stories about how everyone in Washington was insulting Chiang, pronouncing his name "Cash my check".

Though I have too little knowledge to really have an opinion on how authoritarian China would be today had Chiang won...I do think relations with the west would be much better.
I do think most Americans don't know how important (in a positive way Chaing's) son was to Taiwan. I didn't know that either, until I spent some time here.

What a great post that was. A pleasure. Thanks for going to the trouble of writing it.
I admit to a feeling of rueful recognition as i finished your tenth paragraph.
I feel Chaing's son deserves a lot of thanks from freedom loving people everywhere. Taiwan might still be a very authoritarian place without his reforms.

All the best to you and yours this 2017.

I get it, so this is a tender subject the USG walks on eggshells lest we offend either the Chinese or the Taiwanese. But apparently the Palestinians can officially go f**k themselves, according to how little we care about their plight.

But apparently the Palestinians can officially go f**k themselves, according to how little we care about their plight.

I care not one bit about the terrorists, so yes, they CAN go f**k themselves.

Your a moron

Taiwan should be independent and that should be supported by powerful west in any cost.
If China invade Taiwan and west do nothing that would be signal to China to control south China sea and western interest would be diminished completely.
Trick is to maintain the situation as it is no matter what peacefully.
So Trump has what it takes to do that ?
We will see. Since he close deals when he was running his business perhaps this China -Tawan situation is open for deals.

taiwan is a chinese province, having a defeated government ruling it since 1949 doesn't mean it can seek independence, especially when the constitutions of both the prc and even roc itself don't allow it.

with or without the taiwan factor, china is already in control of the south china sea. now if your so-called "western interest" prevails, then where should the chinese interest (both china & taiwan) stand? do remind you that it's no longer the 19th century, china is more than capable to say "no" nowadays, and it has already shown the u.s. how. :)

"china is already in control of the south china sea."

Really? Then why does the US have so many Air and Navy bases in the first island chain?

Why do US military exercises and arms sales to Taiwan, the PH, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, (not to mention South Korea and Japan) continue?

Why do US subs lie in the Taiwan Strait and the Straits of Malacca, Lombok, and Sunda?

China's PLAN/PLAAF has come a long way, but they are no match for the US seventh fleet and the USAF. Not even in the South China Sea. Taiwan's status is an illustration that I'm right.

You also write:
"taiwan is a chinese province"

Really? Then I guess Mr. Xi can visit anytime he likes, and the CPC has legal and political authority over the island? No.
If Mr. Xi wants to visit Taiwan, he must ask for a visa from the Taiwan government. And the CPC cannot write so much as a traffic ticket in Taiwan.
So, if the head of the PRC state cannot visit Taiwan, and the CPC/PRC cannot exert any authority in Taiwan, I do not think Taiwan is a province of China.

Totalitarianism—gets words wrong. It uses them to describe a world that isn't. The CPC demands that everyone pretend the unreal is real, and forces you all to agree. If aggressive censorship fails, force is used. This is in Chinese, if you can see it from within the Chinese firewall:

http://chinadigitaltimes.ne...

in English:

http://chinadigitaltimes.net/

if china has no control, then why can't the u.s. navy, even with "bases all along the first island chain" has to leave every single time when demanded by the chinese navy? where are u.s. bases INSIDE the chinese south china sea territory too? haha....
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and arms sell to taiwan? like what? outdated junk despite the fact that it has violated the sino-u.s. joint communiques and taiwan is now paying for the price? and what other real countries in the region has to do with chinese sovereignty, especially when china is also selling arms to many of them?
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and thanks for mentioning singapore. why will its fighting vehicles been held up in custody in hong kong after exercising in taiwan? who has the control to stop them from returning to singapore? don't tell me it's the u.s., haha....
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and u.s. subs in the taiwan straits and malacca? are you trying to tell me there is no chinese sub in the taiwan straits too? who has popped up in attack range right in front of your carrier group? :D
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also do you not know that china is building a new port with malaysia right at malacca now to counter singapore's dominance?
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and you can stop mislead people with twisted facts. taiwan is a chinese province and it is currently run by the roc government, and the roc itself has also recognized that taiwan is a province. the chinese central government is in beijing but not taipei, that's why taiwanese political leaders, including past and current ones, have all visited beijing. china has sent high level officials to taiwan before, and that's sufficient. most important of all, only a handful of countries and organizations are still recognizing the roc on taiwan as a separate entity. so yeah right, "taiwan is not chinese province", haha....
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and tell us, why does china not have the right to monitor it's own network activities? are you trying to tell us that if you express the will to kill some important political figures in the u.s., national security agents will not come to your doorstop in just hours? :P
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and with all these being said, the u.s. is still unable to stop china from saying "no" nowadays. :)

If the US Navy had left when ordered to do so, you'd have a point. But they didn't.

If the US needed oil through Malacca, you'd have a point. But they don't, and you don't.

If Chinese subs were a match for US subs, you'd have a point, but they aren't.

Likewise China needs to land an amphibious group on Taiwan to take it, the US merely needs to sink shipping headed for Taiwan. Which the US can do.

China has formidable land based missile capacity. It can pound Taiwan. But China can't land an amphibious force to take Taiwan. And it can't exclude the US. Hasn't, not once, and can't, not in the near future.

Try to look up "Tienanmen Square" on Baidu or "earthquake deaths" the US has nothing like the censorship delineated in my links. And you know it.

Your technique there is the "fallacy of equivalence".

Of course Taiwan is not a province of China. Come visit and see. If the CCP will give you an exit visa. (Are you aware that free countries don't require an exit visa?)
And if the Taiwanese government will give you an entry visa. I mean, if Taiwan were a province, none of that would be necessary, and the CCP would have some authority, on the island, right?

The CCP can go pound sand, they cannot enforce a flea here. Taiwan will go her own way today and tomorrow. The US sails where ever she pleases in accordance with international law. And you all are still non voting serfs in your own nation...or rather i should say, in the CCP's nation.

Just as many older current Chinese hide their participation in the Cultural Revolution, so will you, in the future, hide your current participation in the party's enforcement of the Chinese people's serfdom.

From all that candidate Trump has said about China I deduce that he is not eager to start a shooting war with China but is dead set to begin an economic war with the PRC. It is often overlooked that economic/trade wars increase the powers of our executive like shooting wars do. Regardless of whether President Trump "wins" or "loses" that trade and financial war with China his executive powers will become significantly increased no matter how much the establishment GOP moans.

economic war with the prc? then he can prepare to lose.

I am sorry if you have been convinced that the CPC can win an economic war with the US. Because it is the PRC that would lose.
The PRC is not yet the US's peer, the PRC cannot match the US's geographic, monetary, demographic, institutional and resource advantages.

actually i am sorry instead if you really think the u.s. can win an economic war against china.
.
the prc has the largest foreign reserves and a globalized sophisticated financial network, it has a sufficient budget for all of its developments, it is sufficient in energy supplies, it has a massive workforce and the world's best infrastructures, it has the largest domestic market in the world, and it has veto power in the u.n. too.
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so tell us, how the u.s. can win? :)

Really? sufficient in energy supplies? What a joke that is!
And how far do you think 3 trillion in fourex reserves will go? Three years ago it was 4 trillion, the CCP has spent 25% of those reserves in two years, propping up debt, the stock market, and the RMB.

Want a trade war? Me too. Come, let us see which one of us is right. After all , you have plenty of coal. How is the air in Beijing today? Better get used to it, the CCP says that in 2030, pollution will stop getting worse.

Coal plant owners could install and run their scrubbers, but they won't. Scrubbers cost electricity, lots of it. It is cheaper to bribe a CCP official.

what a joke that you don't even know china, like the u.s., is simply buying up foreign oil first before relying on internal supplies. and if you want to say you have shale gas, then you better check who has the largest reserves too, haha....
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maybe you should check the u.s. debt clock and the decline rate of its foreign reserves first before you comment on china's figures. :)
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and you don't seem to understand that there are up and down cycles in fx reserves, the good thing is that china has trillions to spare. when china could double its reserves in 5 years what makes you think it cannot do it again when the market turns around?
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and also you don't seem to aware that with a tiny foreign reserves, the u.s. has also lost 20% in just 2 years. :D
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and rmb? oh thanks for mentioning the rmb, when it has become another reserve currency in imf this year. do you know how many reserve currencies are there in imf? haha....
.

actually you don't 'want' a trade war, as it has already begun, and no one sees the u.s. is winning. and coal? no thanks, chins is getting rid of them too, and by doing so it has already started to destroy the u.s. coal industry, haha....
.
(http://dailycaller.com/2016...

"China runs the world coal market and wants lower prices."

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that summarizes it all, haha.....
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let's check on corruption of another kind too:
.
(http://www.counterpunch.org...

".....A recent Gallup poll found that in 2014 three in four Americans (75%) acknowledged corruption was widespread throughout the U.S. government. More revealing, it noted that over the last decade this perception increased; in 2007 and 2009, it was at two in three Americans, 67 percent and 66 percent, respectively. The belief that the game is rigged is a core assumption in the 2016 presidential election."
.
".....Revelations that Exxon Mobil and Peabody Coal, among other fossil fuel companies, deliberately mislead the public about climate change is becoming a legal – and political – issue."

.
oh yes, the u.s. is very "clean", haha....

I'm sorry Mr. Carpenter, but this statement you wrote is false:

you wrote:
"It [Shanghai Communique] asserted that all parties “on either side of the Taiwan Strait
maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The
United States Government does not challenge that position.”

you truncated the sentence to slip in a lie.
the whole sentence of the Taiwan Relations Act (the binding legal document) is:
"The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position."

"all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait" is NOT "all parties"

And this little bit of lie changes the meaning a great deal.

A detailed and honest exposition of the US position can be found in the 2014 report to the US congress, here
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row...

P.S.
"It is only by getting the words right—using them to describe the world as it is—that one can act right and make the world a bit more the way it should be. Totalitarianism...gets words wrong. It uses them to describe a world that isn't, and thus creates a world that should never be. It comes to power through the harrowing of terror, and maintains itself through the hollowing of language."

Robert Zaretsky
http://www.houstonchronicle...

the taiwan relations act is a direct violation to the joint communiques, and china doesn't recognize it (china won't have to anyway). it is a direct intrusion to china's domestic affairs and sovereignty for the u.s. to act on it.

Well, no, the Communiques are not violated by the Taiwan Relations Act.
I'm sorry, but that statement is false.
In the third communique, both the PRC and the US reaffirmed the statements (concerning Taiwan) that they made in the previous two.

The Taiwan Relations Act is the firmest and most legal basis for US Taiwan policy, it doesn't matter if the CPC recognizes it or not. The CPC is not a party to the Taiwan Relations Act

As you know, the US has been consistent in stating:
"The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the
Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part
of China. The United States Government does not challenge that
position."

as it does in the Taiwan Relations Act.

The US position is that the island's status is unsettled, and must be resolved without coercion. The state department link
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row...

Here is a quote from this report. If the quote is too long, maybe the last paragraph is the most useful.

The United States has its own “one China” policy (vs. the PRC’s “one China” principle) and position on Taiwan’s status. Not recognizing the PRC’s claim over Taiwan nor Taiwan as a sovereign state, U.S. policy has considered Taiwan’s status as unsettled. Since a declaration by President Truman on June 27, 1950, during the Korean War, the United States has supported a future determination of the island’s status in a peaceful manner.

The United States did not state a stance on the sovereign status of Taiwan in the three U.S.-PRC Joint Communiqués of 1972, 1979, and 1982. The United States simply "acknowledged” the “one China” position of both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Washington has not promised to end arms sales to Taiwan for its self- defense, although the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1954 terminated on December 31, 1979. U.S. policy does not support or oppose Taiwan’s independence; U.S. policy takes a neutral position of “non-support” for Taiwan’s independence.

U.S. policy leaves the Taiwan question to be resolved by the people on both sides of the strait: a “peaceful resolution,” with the assent of Taiwan’s people in a democratic manner, and without unilateral changes. In short, U.S. policy focuses on the process of resolution of the Taiwan question, not any set outcome.

Here are links to the text of the communiques
http://www.taiwandocuments....

Note this quote from the communiques.

"These principles were confirmed in the Shanghai Communique of February 28, 1972 and reaffirmed in the Joint Communique on the Establishment Of
Diplomatic Relations which came into effect on January 1, 1979. Both sides
emphatically state that these principles continue to govern all aspects of their relations."

Certainly you are correct when you say the PRC considers this their internal affair.

"The Chinese Government reiterates that the question of Taiwan is China's internal affair."

Certainly you are correct when you say the PRC does not agree with the US position. The communiques do not resolve the differences between the US and PRC positions, the communiques do not pretend to resolve them.

But you are not correct when you state that the Taiwan Relations Act is a direct violation of the three Communiques. The Taiwan Relations Act precedes the Communiques, and has (in the US) the force of law. The communiques are a statement of respective positions, and how we might proceed to resolve the differences.

The Communiques are not US law. The Taiwan Relations Act is US law. And I do not think you can find any language in the Taiwan Relations Act the the Joint Communiques that contradict each other.

first, there are 3 communiques:

http://www.china-embassy.or...

you have not quoted from the 1982 one, was that purpose as you knew that what the u.s. has been doing until today has basically violated it in full? :)
maybe you can explain to us just how the u.s. can pass a law treating a province of china without the consent of the chinese central government?

If Taiwan was a province of China, maybe you'd have a point.
But is isn't, and you don't.
My previous post was complete (linking to all three communiques, which in any case, do not have the force of law).
You do not and cannot show where the Taiwan Relations Act and the Communiques contradict each other. Because they don't.

taiwan is always a chinese province from the views of both the roc and prc governments. maybe you should list out facts to support your idea if it is not. :)

.

and china has never granted the u.s. any authorization to deal directly with a chinese province. so by doing so the u.s. has violated the one china policy which is clearly stated in the communiques.
.
let's take a look at the 1982 communique:
.

August 17, 1982
(1) In the Joint Communique on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations on January 1, 1979, issued by the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the People's Republic of China, the United States of America recognized the Government of the People's Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China, and it acknowledged the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China. Within that context, the two sides agreed that the people of the United States would continue to maintain cultural, commercial, and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan. On this basis, relations between the United States and China were normalized.

.
so how is a law to allow arms sell be considered as "cultural, commercial, and other unofficial relations with the people (not government) of taiwan"? or who has authorized the u.s. to "defend" a chinese province? :D
.
you can continue to twist the facts, only you can't win on this. that's why trump has created a mess too. :)

perhaps your English is not good enough to understand this phrase:
" and it acknowledged the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China."

That isn't the US position. I already quoted the US position.

Keep pretending though! Maybe Mr. Xi will visit the island ..if the Taiwanese invite him and grant him a visa.

Don't your people feel humiliated that Taiwan doesn't use Chinese military? Chinese weapons? Obey Chinese law? I mean, since you claim it is a province and all.....

i don't need a visa to enter Taiwan, but you do. isn't that a kick? Heck, you need TWO visas, one to get out of the PRC, and one to get into Taiwan. I don't need anything, just my passport.

Isn't that a kick in the head? I mean since you say Taiwan is a province and all....

perhaps your english is not good enough rather when you don't seem to understand what it means by "taiwan is part of china"?
.
can the u.s. choose to well arms to "china b" as it likes so to contain "china a"? :D
.
and which communique has granted the u.s. the right to deal with the chinese province of taiwan without the consent of the central government? or is the u.s. not treating the prc as the central government of china? haha....

In fact, Taiwan is and has been and independent country since 1949. Unfortunately, acknowledging historical facts has often been difficult for Beijing.

only the roc government has retreated to taiwan after losing the civil war in 1949, that doesn't mean the taiwan province is independent.

Historically illiterate!

He's entirely correct, even though you don't like it.

which part is correct?

a province suddenly became independent only because a defeated government has retreated to it??? hmmm.......

"In their view, Taiwan was (and remains) a Chinese province that Japan stole from China following a war and an imposed treaty in 1895."

That is nice, but emphasis is on the expression "in their view". All of us understood that "Taiwan has been an inseparable part of the sacred territory of China since ancient times" is a common mantra of the CPC, but it is factually wrong. If a nation creates a fake, fabricated history and on this basis starts to claim various territories, should other nations bow their heads and let them take whatever they wish? Imagine if US senior foreign policy experts say in the 1940's, "well, Germany occupied most of Europe from France to Poland, and in their view they are a superior nation therefore they are the rightful masters of those occupied nations, they consider this as Germany's core national interest, therefore better to respect it and avoid confrontations, nobody needs a military conflict with such a powerful state, it is playing with fire".

Let me use the reply function on this comment to wish you and yours a very Happy New Year.

Oh, thank you very much, and the same for you and your beloved ones. May all of us have a happy and safe New Year.

what fabricated history? not even the u.s. with many original copies of the chinese historic archives can defy chinese history. :)

only the rogue states japan, vietnam, and the philippines are trying to fabricate history.

Time will say, if Taiwan can stay like this until 2050 or later they may have a chance to become free, but right now its just impossible

taiwan won't have a chance even until 2050, it's entire economy is now depending on china. :)

Quote- "When President-elect Donald Trump took the congratulatory telephone call from Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen on December 2, he violated a strict protocol that had been in place for more than three decades."
Put in place by communist leader Jimmy Carter, who never met a commie dictator he didn't lust for in his heart, possibly due to the fact that he, like Obama, was never quite 'bright' enough to be President.
Trump has no obligation to shun our friends and potential allies due to the preferences and whims of a red-filled State Department and a bunch of globalists, especially if they are contrary to America's interests.
Elections have consequences.

Wasn't Carter a nuclear physicist? Didn't Obama graduate from Harvard? Next to them, you're right, luminaries such as Hollywood B-lister and sniveling rat Reagan and business failure G.W. Bush certainly shine.

Are you a time-traveller from 1946?

It is really not a violation of the agreement as Trump is not a president yet when he picked up call from Tsai.
I wonder what would happen if he becomes the President?

"But my experience in dealing with Chinese diplomats and opinion leaders for three decades is that there is one issue on which they are unwilling to capitulate or consider meaningful compromise. That issue is Taiwan’s political future. Indeed, their patience even with the status quo is wearing thin. If the Trump administration repudiates the One China policy, the outcome is not likely to be a groveling Chinese retreat. It is more likely to be war."

Not that I like what Trump's been doing one bit, but if China absolutely refuses to back down from their claims and even wants to repudiate the status quo...then what? It seems like we'd be facing this problem even if Trump weren't our next president. So if push comes to shove, do we back down? Or is it war?

Back down or not. War with China WILL happen! It is not a matter of "IF". It is a matter of "WHEN"! No one wants this to happen but when the so called immovable object meets the irresistible force, things are going to happen. And we all will be involved, even if we don't want to be.

I'm not happy about it, but i think you have a significant chance of being correct.