Trump speaks with the President of Taiwan, risking rift with China

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It's just Trump being Trump. If he was really courageous in fundamentally changing the policy on Taiwan, he'd do so as president, and do so without any prior warning. Now he's burned bridges with both sides and no one will trust his words.

Taiwan should be given more recognition and preference until China can clean up its act.

By whom? The same Donald Trump who said this:

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Taiwan is Western. The People's Republic is not.

Nope, Taiwan is definitely *not* a western society. In fact, one of the things the Taiwanese love to brag about is that it's more authentically Chinese as it didn't suffer through the Cultural Revolution...

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I simply dislike the dictatorship ruling the Chinese and would like to see it weakened and brought to its end.

By whom? A president who openly praised the way they dealt with Tiananmen Square with strength?

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China's foreign minister Wang Yi has made his first official comment:

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One wrinkle with that theory: the Trump Organization has $950 million in publicly reported debts to the Bank of China alone, and there are rumours of far higher debts to other Chinese state-controlled entities.

"So, Donnie, I see you have a nice real estate empire you built. Shame if anything happened to it."

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^ Global Times has hinted that the PRC will retaliate by stealing a few of Taiwan's diplomatic partners to send Tsai a message there will be consequences for her act. There had been rumours that the Dominican Republic is on the verge of defecting, which the Chinese foreign ministry neither confirmed nor denied.

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I think the PRC will be quite calm about this for the following reasons

3) The US can offer Taiwan anything - military toys, more official visits, etc. It's up to Taiwan to do so. And China will simply say, "okay Tsai, go ahead. I dare you." And I don't think any Taiwanese president - even Lee - would be so foolish.