WORLD

With a roughly 10-minute phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, President-elect Donald Trump broke from nearly 40 years of U.S. policy in Asia and probably complicated relations among the United States, China, and Taiwan. What’s the big deal? (Washington Post)

Use our resources to take a look at a brief history of the “Two Chinas.”

Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of key resources in our Teachers Toolkit.

Customize and download your own map of China with our 1-Page MapMaker tool.

Customize and download your own map of Taiwan with our 1-Page MapMaker tool.

Discussion Ideas

• The president of Taiwan is just one of more than a dozen world leaders president-elect Donald Trump has called (or accepted calls from) since winning the presidency last month. Isn’t this normal?
  • No. Traditionally, presidents wait for briefings from the State Department. Calls to the president or president-elect are also usually vetted and verified by staff.
    • President Barack Obama, for instance, made no calls on election day in 2008, when he won the presidency for the first time. He spent days in briefings, and made initial contacts, with strong U.S. allies (Australia, United Kingdom, Canada) two days after the election.

• What other world leaders has President-elect Trump spoken to?
  • Trump called or accepted calls from nine officials on election day, and four the day after. These included allies such as Australia and Canada, as well as regimes with which the U.S. has more nuanced relationships, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
    • Egypt
    • Australia
    • Ireland
    • Japan
    • Israel
    • Canada
    • Mexico
    • Saudi Arabia
    • Turkey
    • Germany
    • Italy
    • United Kingdom
    • South Korea

• Who initiated the conversation between President-elect Trump and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen?
  • The call appears to have been arranged by “Taiwan-friendly” members of Trump’s staff. According to the Washington Post, these advisers are seeking to pursue a “new strategy for engagement with Taiwan.”
  • Bob Dole, former Kansas senator and current lobbyist (here, for the government of Taiwan), “worked behind the scenes over the past six months to establish high-level contact between Taiwanese officials and President-elect Donald J. Trump’s staff.”

• Why was the conversation so groundbreaking?
  • No U.S. president or president-elect has spoken directly with a Taiwanese president since 1979.

• What happened in 1979?
  • In 1979, the U.S. established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, a process that began years earlier. (Learn more about “Nixon in China” here.)

• So what does this have to do with Taiwan? Read our super-short resource on the “Two Chinas” for some help.
  • It’s a big “so what.” The People’s Republic of China (PRC, or China) considers the island of Taiwan (home to the Republic of China (ROC)) to be a part of China, not an independent country.
    • The Republic of China was established in 1949 as the Nationalists, or Kuomintang, fell to the Communists in the Chinese Civil War. The defeated Nationalists moved their capital from Beijing to Taipei, on the island of Taiwan.
      • The Kuomintang continue to be one of the major political parties in Taiwan, and support eventual unification with mainland China. (Tsai Ing-Wen, Taiwan’s first female president, represents the Democratic Progressive Party and favors Taiwanese independence.)
    • The PRC is a communist country with a command economy. The ROC is a democratic state with a capitalist economy. The Two Chinas issue is called the “Taiwan issue” in the PRC and the “Mainland issue” in Taiwan.

• The Washington Post notes that “China’s hypersensitivity to questions about Taiwan’s status cannot be overstated.” How has the world acquiesced to China’s sensitivity?
  • The Republic of China (Taiwan) lost its seat at the United Nations when the UN recognized the PRC in 1971.
  • Fewer than two dozen countries maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
  • At the Olympics, Taiwanese athletes compete for “Chinese Taipei,” as the name “Republic of China” offends its big brother on the mainland.

• Does the U.S. have any contact with Taiwan at all?
  • Yes, of course. The State Department says the U.S. enjoys a “robust unofficial relationship” with Taiwan.
  • As the U.S. formally ended diplomatic relations with the ROC in 1979, it passed the Taiwan Relations Act “to help maintain peace, security, and stability in the Western Pacific” and to continue “commercial, cultural and other relations” with Taiwan.
  • Part of the Taiwan Relations Act is the American Institute in Taiwan, a private, nonprofit corporation which serves as an unofficial embassy.
  • U.S. citizens do not need a visa to visit Taiwan, and both countries recognize dual Taiwanese-American citizenship.
  • Taiwan is the U.S.’s 10th-largest trading partner. (#1? China.)

• What has been the Chinese government’s response to the Trump-Tsai call?
  • So far, “[a]lthough Beijing has lodged an official complaint with the United States about the call, it appears that China is focusing the blame on Taiwan.”
  • China has asked the U.S. to deny Tsai entry to the U.S. (She has a scheduled trip to the U.S. and Central America next month.)

• How have experts assessed the Trump-Tsai call?
  • Some are surprised. Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said “China will go nuts.”
  • Richard C. Bush, the director for the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, sums up: “I think some people are overreacting—the people who say, oh this is the end of the U.S.-China relationship as we know it. That’s not necessarily true. [Chinese leadership] could be lenient to Trump and treat Taiwan differently. We need to know a lot more and we shouldn’t pre-judge the situation, but we shouldn’t trivialize it either.”

TEACHERS TOOLKIT

Washington Post: Why people are making such a big deal about the Trump-Taiwan call

CNN: Donald Trump’s Phone Calls with World Leaders

Nat Geo: Two Chinas article

Nat Geo: Peoples of China map

Nat Geo: People’s Republic of China map

Nat Geo: Republic of China map

U.S. State Department: Taiwan