On China, Trump is ditching diplomacy for gunboats

JC Wilcox, in the latest chapter of his flawed Trump hagiography, exclaims that “Trump has no respect for established protocol”. Quite so. That is only to be expected from a demagogue who has routinely trampled on several other established protocols during the election campaign, all of which have been extensively documented and which include, variously, gratuitously maligning minorities as well as at least two individuals who, unlike him, have served their country with bravery and distinction.
Trump is the Churchillian bull that carries his own china shop around with him, and shows a typically Trumpite ignorance of the nuances of international relations that includes the “timeless wisdom” of realpolitik. He apparently fails to grasp that the One-China policy is absolutely central to Beijing’s view of itself and the outside world. Irrespective of the political complexion of the Chinese government, to blatantly disregard this tenet is to risk raising tensions even further in an already jittery region, one which shows the Chinese mainland already ringed by a large number of US military installations and naval carrier groups. One wonders what Trump would do if the Chinese had bases in the Caribbean, Mexico and Canada.
The Project for a New American Century, a right-wing neo-con group, has a website that contains a document called “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”, in which the authors imagine a US “full-spectrum” domination of land, sea, air and space. It’s difficult to think that, privately or openly, Trump will distance himself from this (presumably) ongoing overt or covert military posture, even with all the unstated implications.
One can only hope that reality bites, and Trump falls into line.
Dr Frank