Trump spoke to the President of Taiwan and it set off a firestorm of criticism. A lot of people are worried about what effect this will have on US-China relations. I can only think it will work to an improvement. The best relations are maintained when both sides are firm and understand each others position.
First off, a little history lesson:
Over the past 121 years, mainland China has ruled Taiwan for a total of four (4) years. The Island was annexed by Japan after the Sino-Japanese War of 1895 and then stayed in Japanese hands until 1945. From 1945 to 1949, Taiwan was ruled from the mainland, but in 1949 the government of China was chased out and made itself a home in Taiwan. Officially, the government of Taiwan considers itself the legitimate government of all of China, while the Chinese government considers itself the rightful owner of Taiwan. Both positions are absurd. The writ of the People’s Republic of China has never run to Taiwan and the youngest Taiwanese who could possibly have been a part of a Chinese government would be about 90, now. About 87% of Taiwan’s population is native to Taiwan – wasn’t born in China, nor under the rule of the People’s Republic of China. While plenty of people in Taiwan still desire a theoretical reunification with China, no one wants to come under the rule of the current government in Beijing – and the younger generation is ever more Taiwanese. To say that Taiwan must be considered part of China is as silly as saying that Austria must be part of Germany, simply because for a brief while Germany ruled Austria and the people of Austria are ethnic Germans.
Also, China needs to know that for all their economic advancement and their desire for increased global power, the United States is still far ahead of China and that we much prefer the people of east Asia and the western Pacific rule their own destinies. Trump’s action will cause some shrieks from China’s leaders – but the bottom line is that it lets them know that the days of the United States playing the patsy to China are over. Trump did a good thing – an honest thing; the hypocrisy of our position vis a vis Taiwan has been a nauseating relic of the Cold War and it is past time it as done away with. If Taiwan ever freely decides to unite itself with China, all well and good – but unless and until such time, it is our duty as the premier free nation on Earth to ensure that the free people of Taiwan are not forced into Chinese servitude.
Blogs For Victory 
……the bottom line is that it lets them know that the days of the United States playing the patsy to
ChinaANYONE are over.Good analysis Mark and I revised the above statement for you. The days of bowing to kings and deferring to despots are over and thank God. With Mad Dog at the helm the rest of the world has been put on notice that America is back and will once again assume the mantle of strong decisive leadership. Peace through strength.
Proving once again that Obama still has her heart, Andrea Mitchells comment re: the Taiwan call was priceless this morning on Meet the Press. She said and I paraphrase – “prior to the election the Chinese were thinking Trump is a businessman that they could get a long with, unlike Obama who would continually bludgeon them over human rights, but now that tone has changed” – I guess I don’t remember Obama’s tough human rights positions against China, maybe I missed that when he bowed to the Chinese leader last spring.
One very good observation about the Taiwan call from VP elect Pence when he said that Obama reaches out to a murderous dictator in Cuba and that action is met with praise while Trump taking a phone call from a democratically elected leader of Taiwan is met with trepidation and fear. And that is the current state of our media
One of the interesting dynamics that’s playing out right now is regarding tax incentives to keep businesses from leaving the country, ie., Carrier. The people who criticize this are admitting, whether they realize it or not, that our current Corporate tax structure is acting as a disincentive for companies to STAY here. I think once we lower our corporate tax rate (Trump wants 15% vs. the current 35%), you won’t have to use tax incentives to keep them from moving or to lure them back.
It’s going to be a pleasure to see the sea change that’s coming in the way the government looks at and treats business. The only thing that’s ever going to get this country out of the downward debt and economic growth spiral we’re in is for government to stop treating the engine of capitalism as something that must be punished and limited.
Capitalism puts people in power not only through entrepreneurism but also through the fundamental laws of supply and demand and that is an existential threat to the progressive agenda.
Roll back needless and punitive regulations, lower tax rates, and bring back the $2 trillion of off shore funds and I think you will see the economy kick into a new gear. I can’t wait.
Just to show you how much the Left is misrepresenting this (Carrier), one of the Dem talking heads described the Carrier deal as spending a million dollars per job. Chris Wallace asked Kelly Ann Conway about it on Fox News Sunday, and she said the $7 million tax incentive is spread over 10 years, so $700,000/year divided by around 1,000 jobs or about $700/job per year. Just a little discrepancy there. Obviously the Dem was not good at math or maybe a product of Common Core math. Or maybe he was thinking it was over 143 years and just failed to mention that.
And that is assuming that at the end of ten years this Carrier division is still only employing 1000 people. If it grows, that number could double. And then we have the math of figuring out the amount of tax money paid back into the government by those employees, now and future. Have a job=pay taxes. Buy stuff=pay taxes. Buy a house=pay property taxes. Each one of those original 1000 people is going to pump a whole lot more than $700 a year back into the economy, federal and state and local.
BTW, Sarah Palin continues to make me think we dodged a bullet when we didn’t get her as a VP. True, Biden has set the bar pretty low, but still……….
Spook, you forgot to include workers from the other 56 states.
AMAZONA – and that also doesn’t include the spin off jobs from all of the companies that supply Carrier with raw materials, office supplies, machines, IT infrastructure and the like. I’d bet there are a few thousand of those too.
I worked the Oath Keepers table at a local gun show yesterday, the first such show I’ve been to in nearly two years. A couple times I got a chance to walk around the show, and between the vendors I talked to and the people who stopped by our table, every other word was “Trump this and Trump that,” and almost all of it positive. During the campaign I think there was a lot of pro-Trump sentiment, especially out here in fly-over country, that he would get revenge against “the man.” Now that sentiment is pretty much switching to the positive things that people think, or at least hope he’s going to do that will make their lives better. I said back when he first got the nomination that I hoped that would happen if he won, and it looks like it is, at least around where I live. Is anyone else seeing this shift in attitude in other areas of the country?
“Is anyone else seeing this shift in attitude in other areas of the country?”
Nope, not in true blue areas like Seattle. Progressivism holds sway here like a dominant religion. Although the whines and sobs are getting quieter and less distinct. I think a certain amount of reality is setting in with the left–a slow realization that Trump isn’t quite the monster they’ve made him out to be. Notice how the media is starting to talk up the economy a bit? They’re recognizing the positive influence the impending Trump presidency is having on the markets and pumping the narrative that Obama left Trump a booming economy.
and pumping the narrative that Obama left Trump a booming economy.
LSHIHTSDMF!! (Laughing so hard I have tears streaming down my face.) I would think even Liberals could tell the difference between a sh*t sandwich and a booming economy.
Correct me if I’m wrong, Rusty, but isn’t Seattle a Sanctuary City? The chairman of House Appropriations Committee was just interviewed by Shannon Bream on Fox News Headquarters. He said, working with the Trump justice department they will not only stop the flow of federal grant money to sanctuary cities that refuse to obey federal law; they will bill them retroactively for the billions of dollars that sanctuary cities have defrauded the taxpayers out of over, I think he said the last ten years.
Better buy another case of popcorn.
Seattle is a defacto sanctuary city. Hope Trump follows through with his punitive measures.
” I would think even Liberals could tell the difference between a sh*t sandwich and a booming economy.”
Why? Has anything happened in the last eight years to make you think that?
Now, now Amazona – take, for instance, Jill Stein…she says “The People” demand a recount in Pennsylvania and the fact that she got only 1% of the vote PROVES she knows what the people want…so, she’s on it…smartest person, like ever…
Jill Stein has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that earning a doctorate degree does not at all mean that one is intelligent. She is a complete moron.
I take it you saw her performance on Fox News Sunday. Almost no one is discussing what is likely her primary motive for the recount effort, and the motive of the Clinton people for signing on. They all readily admit that a recount is extremely unlikely to change the outcome, even in Michigan where the difference is only around 10,000 votes. BTW, didn’t you love the way she deflected when Chris Wallace asked her why she didn’t seek a recount in New Hampshire where Clinton’s margin of victory was less than 3,000 votes — the deadline to request a recount had passed. Of course that didn’t stop her in Pennsylvania where she’s appealing to the courts because she missed the deadline.
A bit of conspiracy theory comes into play when you ask, OK, what happens if the recounts are still underway on the date that the votes are supposed to be certified so the Electoral College can vote on December 19th. Something like this has never happened before, so there’s no precedent. If the only recount that still underway is the one in Wisconsin, that’s no big deal because Wisconsin is only 10 electoral votes, but if recounts are still underway in Michigan (16) and Pennsylvania (20) as well, and their Electors can’t vote, that keeps Trump under 270 and throws the election into the House of Representatives. He still likely wins, although not every Republican Congressman is a Trump fan by any stretch of the imagination, plus it further divides the country at a time when we desperately need to come together. Interesting times we live in.
“… it further divides the country …” which is the goal of the whole charade. The Left has to have chaos, divisiveness and distrust—it is the manure pile on which the Leftist mushrooms grow.
I hope Trump makes this clear. I want him, or Pence, to come right out and say this. I want one or even both of them to point out that if there is no reasonable chance of changing the outcome of a state election we have to look at the real reason for challenging it, and the real reason is the effort to undermine the legitimacy of a Trump presidency and keep unrest and resentment at a boil for as long as they can.
Too funny!
I finished up the last of my fall outside cleanup just in time for it to start snowing. So I’m sitting at my computer going through a bunch of old Microsoft Word files, deleting ones that were no long relevant or needed, and I came across this short list that I think I must have copied off Facebook a while back. Just a brief reminder of the mindset we’re up against.
The conundrum of socialism
1. America is capitalist and greedy – yet half of the population is subsidized.
2. Half of the population is subsidized – yet they think they are victims.
3. They think they are victims – yet their representatives run the government.
4. Their representatives run the government – yet the poor keep getting poorer.
5. The poor keep getting poorer – yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about.
6. They have things that people in other countries only dream about – yet they want America to be more like those other countries.