Trump Warns China that the American Policy of Appeasement Is Coming to an End

Iran isn't the only mess Obama is leaving behind for President Trump to deal with. There is the big issue of China. • • • THE DRONE SEIZURE. Newsmax reported Saturday that China's Defense Ministry said it plans to return a US underwater drone seized this week by a Chinese naval vessel in the South China Sea, but complained the United States was "hyping up" the incident. The drone taken on Thursday was the first seizure of its kind in a long time. It prompted the Pentagon to 'go public' with a diplomatic complaint that drew criticism from US President-Elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to be more aggressive in dealing with Beijing. Trump tweeted on Saturday : "China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters - rips it out of water and takes it to China in unprecedented act." Trump later tweeted : "We should tell China that we don't want the drone they stole back.- let them keep it!" • The drone was collecting data about the salinity, temperature and clarity of the water about 50 nautical miles northwest of Subic Bay, off the Philippines, and was seized just as the USNS Bowditch was about to retrieve it, US officials said. The Pentagon said the drone was operating lawfully and was clearly marked as US property. In any case, the drone was collecting oceanographic data, including salinity, temperature and clarity of the water, the US official added. [The data can help inform US military sonar data since such factors affect sound.] The Chinese Defense Ministry said a Chinese naval vessel discovered a piece of "unidentified equipment," and checked it to prevent any navigational safety issues before discovering it was a US drone. On its website, the ministry said : "China decided to return it to the US side in an appropriate manner, and China and the US have all along been in communication about it. During this process, the US side's unilateral and open hyping up is inappropriate, and is not beneficial to the smooth resolution of this issue. We express regret at this." • Without directly saying whether the drone was operating in waters China considers its own, China's Defense Ministry said US ships and aircraft have for a long period been carrying out surveillance and surveys in "the presence" of Chinese waters. China is resolutely opposed to this, and demands the US stops this kind of activity," it said, adding that China will remain on alert for such activities and take necessary steps to deal with them, without giving any details. Newsmax reported that the Global Times, published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, earlier cited an unidentified Chinese source as saying they believed the issue would be resolved smoothly. • Perhaps China had already discovered what the Pentagon later confirmed at a news briefing -- the drone uses commercially available technology and sells for about $150,000 -- thus, it would not be interesting to the Chinese for US technology theft purposes. • Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said that Beijing had agreed to transfer the “ocean glider” back to the United States, but said details on how and when that would occur had not been decided. According to US officials, the Chinese ship refused initial requests from the Bowditch to return the drone. Cook said : “We have registered our objection to China’s unlawful seizure of a US unmanned underwater vehicle operating in international waters in the South China Sea,” Cook said in a statement. Through direct engagement with Chinese authorities, we have secured an understanding that the Chinese will return the [drone] to the United States.” After the Pentagon announced that the drone would be returned, an unnamed US defense official told the Washington Post that the Obama administration was “glad to get it back and put this behind us. It’s somewhat reassuring that senior leadership in Beijing agreed that this was something that should be returned, regardless of the individual actions of their people at sea.” It is not clear who authorized the seizure of the drone, but it is clear that Obama has rolled over to yet another Chinese affront. • • • WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT? There could be several plausible explanations for the drone seizure and China's reaction. The simplest explanation is that some hotshot Chinese naval vessel commander acted without instructions to seize the drone, and Chinese officials were not 'pleased' and acted quickly to repair the damage without admitting that an unintended seizure had occurred. A second explanation could be that China is seeking cover for the US media attention being given to the ever-increasing Chinese military presence in the South China Sea. And, of course, there is the questioning of the status quo that President-Elect Trump is inserting into US-China relations. Trump has complained frequently about the South China Sea build-up. He has threatened to declare China a currency manipulator and force changes in US-Chinese trade policy, which he says has led to the greatest theft of American jobs in history. Trump has also raised questions about whether Washington would stick to its 1979 policy of recognizing that Taiwan is part of "One China." He irritated Beijing by taking a congratulatory phone call from President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan after his November 8 election victory, and China lodged a diplomatic protest. US President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, acknowledging Taiwan as part of "one China." My guess is that it's a little of all these. • • • CHINA'S 'LAND' GRAB IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA. The drone incident certainly raises fresh concerns about China's increased military presence and aggressive posture in the disputed South China Sea, including its militarization of its 'manmade' maritime outposts. Reuters reported on Saturday that accroding to new satellite imagery, China has installed weapons, including anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems, on all seven artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea, quoting Mira Rapp-Hooper, a senior fellow in the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, who said : "This move, if accurately reported, is highly escalatory, and it is hard to see how Beijing will justify it legally." • • • TAIWAN. The Guardian published a report on September 25 -- long before Trump was elected or talked to the Taiwan president -- that said : "Tsai Ing-wen is new to the job and the strain is beginning to show. Elected president of Taiwan in a landslide victory, she took office in May, buoyed by high approval ratings. Yet in a few short months, Tsai’s popularity has plunged by 25%. The reason may be summed up in one word : China. Suspicious that Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party, which also won control of parliament, harbors a pro-independence agenda, Beijing suspended official and back-channel talks with its 'renegade province' and shut down an emergency hotline." The Guardian went on to say that the more serious act by China "for many Taiwanese workers is that China also curbed the lucrative tourist trade, which brought millions of mainland visitors to the island during the accommodating presidency of Tsai’s predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou. Cross-strait investment and business have also been hit." The Guardian concluded that : "Tsai faces contradictory pressures. The public wants the benefit of closer economic ties with China but Beijing’s intentions are rightly distrusted by a population that increasingly identifies itself as Taiwanese, not Chinese. Given President Xi Jinping’s ominous warnings that reunification cannot be delayed indefinitely, China’s military build-up and hawkish suggestions that Beijing may resort to force, Taiwanese ambivalence is wholly understandable." • • • THE BROADER ASIA ISSUES. The US dilemma created by trying to work constructively with a powerful, aggressive China without compromising or surrendering the national interests of other Asian nations has never been resolved by President Obama. Nations across east and southeast Asia -- Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, Seoul, Malaysia and Singapore -- share the dilemma and have tried different tactics, sometimes putting them sharply at odds with one another. The US has tried in recent years to strengthen Asian alliances, increase trade and raise its regional military profile -- this is Barack Obama’s so-called "pivot to Asia" -- a bid the Guardian describes as trying to : "contain and channel China’s ambitions peacefully. But analysts say the pivot appears to be in trouble. For Europeans fixated on Syria and immigration, this may not seem especially worrying or relevant. That’s shortsighted. If Obama and future US Presidents get China wrong, the resulting damage could be global, threatening the security and prosperity of all." • Obama's pivot to Asia has auite simply failed. His plan to promote interdependent economic self-interest across the Pacific Rim, while excluding China, by implementing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is in deep trouble and probably dead now that the Republicans control the House, Senate and White House. • Further, Obama’s obvious inability to curb China’s controversial island-building program that de facto annexes the international shipping lanes of the South China Sea is seen in the region as further evidence that the pivot has failed. Ignoring neighboring countries’ rival claims, Chinese has effectively unilaterally annexed 80% of the South China Sea’s area, through which passes $5 trillion of world trade annually. “Freedom of navigation” patrols by US warships have had little impact while increasing the risk of direct military confrontation. China's continuing South China Sea build-up continues because China has rejected a precedent-setting UN court ruling that deemed its claim to own the Spratly Islands, also claimed by the Philippines, to be illegal. Beijing has taken a similarly intransigent stance in its dispute with Japan over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands in the East China Sea. • An analysis by the International Institute for Strategic Studies concluded that China’s military construction on the Spratlys and “its effort to exhaust and eventually displace Japan in a contest for the Senkakus can be seen as an attempt psychologically and physically to isolate Taiwan and to prepare the battle space for China’s possible use of military force to unify the PRC and Taiwan." • Beijing’s divide-and-rule tactics and perceived American weakness have led some regional allies to act unilaterally. Taiwan’s military is fortifying Itu Aba, its sole island possession in the South China Sea. And, the maverick Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte can't seem to decide if he is with the US or China, or ofr or against China's South China Sea buildup. Vietnam’s prime minister, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, meekly agreed in talks with Xi in September that “maritime co-operation through friendly negotiations” was the best way forward, but like China, Hanoi is hedging its bet by rapidly building military capacity and cementing alliances with India, among others, in anticipation of less amicable times ahead. In Laos, an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit deliberately avoided mention of the UN court ruling recently. All this is in response to a pattern the world has come to recognize -- it resembles Obama's 2009 promise, but dismal failure, to halt North Korea’s accelerating pursuit of nuclear weapons, leading to Pyongyang’s biggest ever test explosions. China, the only country with real leverage, has helped impose additional UN sanctions on North Korea, but it has consistently refused to accept game-changing measures, such as cutting off fuel oil supplies, which could force Kim Jong-un to halt his aggressive nuclear program. • Beijing also says it will block “unilateral” measures by other countries. Obama’s impotence has led some analysts to see the trend of a growing imbalance and an increase of potential flashpoints in the South China Sea, Taiwan and elsewhere as proof that future military conflict between the US and China is inevitable. The Pentagon now officially refers to the Chinese “threat.” The Guardian points to a recent study the Rand Corporation made. It is a detailed examination of who might “win” such a military showdown. Rand Corporation concludes that it would probably be catastrophic for both sides. Yet the study also suggests that, if war cannot be avoided, the US might be best advised to strike first, before China gets stronger and the current US military advantage declines. • • • THE TRUMP EFFECT. The American Thinker published an article on Saturday, "Trump’s Taiwan Move Exposes Weak Pacific Alliances," by Robert Caskey, that uses a different lens to examine the Trump phone call with Taiwan president Tsai : "While many critics initially speculated that the move was an inadvertent gaffe showing Trump’s inexperience in global politics, advisors have indicated that the call represents a new plan to engage with Taiwan that had been planned for months. With many of Trump’s advisors known for favoring a tough stance towards China, the phone call could represent an overdue normalization of relations with Taiwan and its democratically elected government. The lack of diplomatic relations with Taiwan is an antiquated holdover from the Cold War. Despite widespread criticism of the move throughout the media, this recognition of Taiwan could help to stabilize an increasingly unstable region." Caskey says : "In fact, the old policy consensus of appeasement has only encouraged China to [use] intimidating rhetoric to gets its way on matters such as Taiwan. After implying that it would readily take back Taiwan by force, scaring diplomats around the globe, China has used increasingly uncompromising language to make demands. President Xi Jinping stated in 2013 that disagreements such as Taiwan 'cannot be passed on from generation to generation,' effectively imposing an unknown time limit on the issue whose terms are dictated by Beijing. A tough stance like Trump’s will discourage such intimidation tactics. If Trump puts Taiwan back on the negotiating table, he may be able to gain leverage to strike a larger bargain that could ease tensions in East Asia from North Korea to the South China Sea." Caskey sees benefits to China from abandoning the 'One China' policy : "If China lets go of its outdated claims on Taiwan, it would be able to loosen some of its policies designed to isolate Taiwan in the international community -- a development that would be good for regional stability overall." • • • DEAR READERS, one unnamed Trump advisor told Caskey that the President-Elect envisions Japan beginning to play a more active leadership role in the region. The advisor called Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe "a uniquely placed figure to offer leadership in the alliance." President-Elect Trump appears committed to standing up to China, while at the same time strengthening the special relationship between the United States and Japan. This is in part apparently the result of a sense of disappointment with the stand-offish position of Australia, whose economic ties with China are expanding. Also, Trump’s conversation with Tsai and the subsequent criticism of the “One China” policy could be a much-needed antidote to decades of 'appeasement diplomacy' that has allowed China to dictate American policy toward Taipei and south Asia. Critics conveniently overlook the fact that besides showing American strength, the move could provide leverage to promote peace and stability in other regional conflicts. Any less firm stance by President Trump will only send a message to China that America is still weak and that intimidation tactics will continue to be an effective strategy. It is now up to Donald Trump to prove that he can deal with China, protect US allies in Asia, and repair the deep regional damage created by the Obama years of timid acquiescence in all China's unrelenting and blatently aggressive demands that it be allowed to do as it likes in Asia. Trump must stop China from cutting America out of the equation by 'proving' to traditional regional US allies that America will help them stand up to Chinese agression.