I admit, my first reaction to the news of a break in forty years of American policy was as much to the time span of forty years as to the event itself. Could this be the beginning of a shift of Biblical proportions? Hmmm ... I next analogized the happening to a superpower chess match. While our eyes have been on North Korea as a pawn of China and Russia, could the United States have just moved it's Queen on China's Bishop? Enough. It was time to call an expert, so I reached out to Gordon G. Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China and devoted analyst of Asian security matters. He has been generous and pivotal in this space and, most recently, speaking to a live audience at our Election Night 2016 Security Summit. He replied with his characteristic precision and alacrity:
"It is possible the phone conversation Friday with Tsai Ing-wen was Trump's opening bid in a complex bargaining with Beijing and that he has no long-term intention to strengthen relations with Taipei, but the Trump advisor who put the call together, Stephen Yates, is a strong proponent of Taiwan. It is almost certain, therefore, that Yates was trying to steer American policy in Taipei's direction.
What we do know is that the President-elect has broken with almost four decades of Washington policy toward China, and this creates a dynamic that could take on a life of it's own.
See this, my National Interest piece on the topic: http://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-donald-trumps-taiwan-call-changes-everything-18605."
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