Not for the first time, and almost certainly not for the last in this two months of shadow government by Twitter, it is far from clear whether Donald Trump has made US foreign policy by accident or on purpose.



As has also become normal in the “post-truth” aftermath of the bitter election, the facts surrounding his telephone conversation with Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen are in dispute. Reacting to the wave of alarm caused by the call, upending 37 years of US diplomatic practice in a few minutes, the president-elect protested in a tweet that it was Tsai who had called him, implying he just happened to pick up the phone.

Donald Trump's phone call with Taiwan president risks China's wrath Read more

According to the Taipei Times however, the call had been orchestrated by the Trump transition team, several members of which have strong leanings towards a more pro-Taiwan policy.

On the same day as the call, Trump met John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN, a candidate for the secretary of state job, and a fierce advocate of stronger commitment to Taiwan as a way of exacting a price for China’s increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea and elsewhere.

Bolton wrote in the Wall Street Journal in January: “The new US administration could start with receiving Taiwanese diplomats officially at the State Department; upgrading the status of US representation in Taipei from a private ‘institute’ to an official diplomatic mission; inviting Taiwan’s president to travel officially to America; allowing the most senior US officials to visit Taiwan to transact government business; and ultimately restoring full diplomatic recognition.”

Stephen Yates, a former White House aide to Dick Cheney now advising the Trump transition was in Taiwan at the time of the call. “It’s great to have a leader willing to ignore those who say he cannot take a simple call from another democratically elected leader,” Yates tweeted.

The third now familiar transition theme illustrated by the Taiwan call is that it is unclear where Trump’s business interests end and his presidential intentions begin. A Trump representative had reportedly visited the north-west city of Taoyuan to inspect investment opportunities at a new luxury development there. And the president-elect’s son Eric Trump is expected in Taiwan on business next year.

As is bound to happen in relations with the 20 or so countries around the world where the Trump Organisation has business interests – unless Trump decides to sell his holdings and set up a genuine blind trust – decisions will have both commercial and geopolitical implications and it will be hard to disentangle one from another.

Isaac Stone Fish, a senior fellow at the Asia Society’s Centre on US-China Relations, said it mattered whether the call was a careless gaffe or well-prepared provocation, especially when it came to Beijing’s perceptions.

“I don’t know whether Trump and his advisers understood the unprecedented nature of this phone call, or how much he debated the effect this may have with his advisers beforehand,” Fish said in an email. “But the issue of whether or not they knew is hugely important. It helps determine how much trust and respect Americans, and governments around the world, should have in Trump and his team’s competence in handling US foreign policy – if he and his team didn’t know this would cause a stir, then they deserve less respect and trust.”

He added: “It’s far more worrying for global stability if Beijing believes that Trump and his advisers just didn’t understand US policy towards Taiwan. If they view this as a blunder, they could decide to move quickly to exploit Trump’s inexperience and incompetence in foreign affairs, and Obama’s lame-duck status.”

Christopher Hill, a former assistant secretary of state for east Asian and Pacific affairs said in a tweet the call looked to be an “example of winging it in the extreme” and he said he hoped “Trump doesn’t feel he has to double down on this judgment error.”

That is what appeared to be happening late on Friday, as new battle lines were drawn around the call. The president-elect defended his decision saying that the US sells Taiwan “billions of dollars of military equipment”, and his aide Kellyanne Conway, insisted he was “well aware of what US policy has been” toward Taiwan.

Republicans piled in on Trump’s side. Senator Tom Cotton, issued a statement saying: “I commend President-elect Trump for his conversation with President Tsai Ing-wen, which reaffirms our commitment to the only democracy on Chinese soil.”

Democratic senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut argued that, even if Trump wanted to change US policy, this was no way to do it.

“What has happened in the last 48 hours is not a shift. These are major pivots in foreign policy [without] any plan. That’s how wars start,” Murphy tweeted. “And if they aren’t pivots – just radical temporary deviations – allies will walk if they have no clue what we stand for. Just as bad.”

Aaron Friedberg, a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, said he was an advocate of closer ties with Taiwan but said “this seems ill-considered [and] pointlessly provocative”.

“Strategy involves thinking more than one move ahead. No evidence of that here,” Friedberg said, adding that whatever the circumstances of the call, Beijing was more likely to see it as a deliberate provocation and a test than a blunder.