Good day all. You can count the People’s Republic of China as another group that hasn’t quite come to terms with President Donald Trump. Yesterday they referred to “The Donald” as a rookie who must fall in line.
It seems that someone has forgotten that this is Donald Trump, and not Hillary Clinton who won the election. If anyone is going to fall in line, it’s going to be China. Here are the details from Yahoo News:
Donald Trump is a “diplomatic rookie” who must learn not to cross Beijing on issues like trade and Taiwan, Chinese state media said Tuesday, warning America could pay dearly for his naivety.
Trump’s protocol-shattering call with Taiwan’s president and a subsequent Twitter tirade against Beijing’s policies could risk upending the delicate balance between the world’s two largest economies, major media outlets said.
“Provoking friction and messing up China-US relations won’t help ‘make America great again'”, said a front-page opinion piece in the overseas edition of Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily. The nationalist Global Times newspaper’s Chinese edition also ran a page-one story on Trump’s “inability to keep his mouth shut”, damning his “provocation and falsehoods”.
Trump fired off two tweets on Sunday blasting China for devaluing its currency, taxing US imports, and building military installations in the South China Sea.
The comments followed criticism of Trump in US and Chinese media for taking a congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, a move that flew in the face of nearly 40 years of diplomatic protocol and raised questions about whether the president-elect intends to pursue a hard line against Beijing.
Oh, I think we can take that as a given. China is about to find out that the game has changed. We have a president who isn’t going to suck up to them, (The Bushes), take bribes from them, (The Clintons, both of them), or Kowtow to them. (Obama)
Official reaction from Beijing has been muted, but China often uses state media to telegraph its policy positions, sometimes employing rhetoric beyond the diplomatic pale. The Global Times’ English-language edition filled its opinion pages with editorials slamming the president-elect. The often brittle, provocative publication is not considered “official” media, but has close ties to the ruling party.
That’s part of the Asian “Face” game. If it comes down to it, the political class can throw their media under a bus and deny everything. Have no doubts, this is exactly what the rulers in Beijing are saying in private. For instance:
“He is trying to pillage other countries for US prosperity,” it warned, but instead he will unwittingly “smash the current world economic order” of which the US is the “biggest beneficiary.”
Well, they got that one right!
A companion commentary warned that Trump “will in time learn not to cross China”, threatening “a fierce competition” with Beijing if the US increases arm sales to Taiwan.
Or what? Just what does this commentator think China can actually do? Go to war with the United States? Granted, it would be bad, and thanks to Obama, Bush and Clinton, we aren’t militarily as strong as we should be, but we have sufficient forces to turn China’s navy into a reef any time we choose to.
It was illustrated by an editorial cartoon showing an eagle throwing pebbles at a large, scowling panda.
You do know that Chinese Panda’s are herbivores, and American Grizzly’s are carnivores, right?
Meanwhile the English-language China Daily newspaper warned that “diplomatic rookie” Trump needs to moderate his behaviour or he will create “costly troubles for his country”.
“If Trump continues talking this way after taking office… China is going to have to make some adjustments in its thinking,” Jia Qingguo, professor at Peking University, told AFP, calling the comments “sobering”.
I think someone just got hit with a cluebat and is beginning to understand that they won’t have an administration they can push around any longer.
Trump’s decision to speak with Taiwan’s president seems to have particularly rattled Beijing, which regards the democratically-ruled island of 23 million a renegade province, though it has its own legal and military systems and has not been under Beijing’s control for more than 60 years.
Actually, the island now called Taiwan was occupied by Imperial Japan prior to WW 2, so closer to 80+ years.
“This call was no accident,” said Trey McArver, analyst for China Politics Weekly. “It is clear that Trump associates, including chief of staff Reince Priebus, have had repeated contact with Tsai and her people in recent months and were well aware of what they were doing.”
Ok, here’s the deal. For decades, we have been doing trade deals with China that have benefited China and not the United States. We transferred our manufacturing from North America into Asia and got back…nothing. It’s not easy selling things made in America to China.
Then we have the issue of outright theft of American intellectual property. Anything sent to China to be manufactured will be stolen and sold back into the United States, screwing the IP owner out of his or her profits. Now China has been caught actually breaking into corporate computer networks and looting them for anything they can use. (Industrial espionage) Previous administrations, (Obama, Bush 2, Clinton and Bush 1), have turned a blind eye to this, and in some cases, have aided and abetted in it. (Bill Clinton allowing missile tech to go to China)
The old rules will be changing come January 20th and China is beginning to understand that they won’t be getting away with their usual crap. All the moves by the previous administrations to hamstring American companies and basically drive them out of the United States is going to be reversed. Regulations and the tax code are going to be gutted and rewritten to benefit the United States, not potential enemies. If China wants to try and play rough, they better be prepared for what will happen. The Chinese don’t like Japan at all, but Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto understood why starting anything with the United States was a bad idea.
“I fear all we have done today is to awaken a great, sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
Thatisall
~The Angry Webmaster~
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