Trump Telephone Diplomacy, Taiwan Edition

Trump's latest tweet:

The President of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency. Thank you!

The man is simply pig-ignorant. This is a serious diplomatic faux pas, and a slap in the face to China after 38 years of diplomatic tension. And Trump may well be lying: the Taiwanese press say the call came from Trump. According to the Taipei Times: "Trump reportedly agreed to the call, which was arranged by his Taiwan-friendly campaign staff after his aides briefed him on issues regarding Taiwan and the situation in the Taiwan Strait, sources said."

Click here for an article by Abigail Williams at NBC News, enitled "Trump Departs from U.S.-China Policy, Speaks with Taiwan's President." It says:

Trump spoke Friday with President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan -- a nation the U.S. has not had diplomatic relations with since 1979. As part of the agreement establishing official diplomatic relations with China, the U.S. government established a "One China" policy, recognizing the People's Republic of China as the sole legal government and ceasing all diplomatic recognition of Taiwan.

Now as territorial disputes routinely threaten conflict in the South China Sea, the call, believed to be one of the first between a U.S. president and a leader from Taiwan in decades, could potentially rankle China, a regional powerhouse.

"Regional powerhouse"? Okay, I guess that's one way of putting it. "Global superpower" might be another.

On "All In with Chris Hayes" on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow speculated that the call may have been at the suggestion of John Bolton, bomb-thrower extraordinaire, who was at the Trump Tower, and who of course would understand full well the implications of such a call. Maddow said:

I am resistant, as a person, to sort of personality-driven analysis of different foreign leaders, and American leaders; I just don't buy it. But one thing that I have to say I'm worried about is if Donald Trump doesn't have preferences, knowledge, or curiosity about a lot of important things, there will be people around him who do, who use him as a vehicle to accomplish stuff that he may not even understand the magnitude of while he's doing it.

This feels like the first thing since he's been president-elect that he may have -- I mean, even him just saying that "The president of Taiwan called me," like that changes at all the fact that he spoke to the president of Taiwan, that if he doesn't get it, and other people around him do -- John Bolton was at Trump Tower today; you know, like, was this a John Bolton [joint? -- unclear]?

There's a reason John Bolton was never confirmed, under even George W. Bush; it's because he was too radical and unstable to hold a position of power. He has not been nominated anything by Donald Trump, but if by being a gadfly around the transition, he has just caused the biggest rift with the most powerful nation on earth -- other than us -- in 40 years, and Trump had no idea he was bumbling into it, then we have a structural problem with the ignorance of the president-elect that's not going to get better when this is cleaned up.

Maddow is not alone in her suspicions. According to an article in Politico by Michael Crowley, entitled "Bull in a China shop: Trump risks diplomatic blowup in Asia":

Trump has said little about Taiwan, but has surrounded himself with advocates of a tilt toward away from Beijing, including former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, who visited Trump Tower on Friday for undisclosed reasons. In January, Bolton, who has been considered for top posts in a Trump administration, argued for "playing the Taiwan card" to pressure mainland China to back off its increasingly aggressive moves in the Pacific region.

Bolton wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal in January about tweaking China with overtures to Taiwan:

The new U.S. administration could start with receiving Taiwanese diplomats officially at the State Department; upgrading the status of U.S. 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 U.S. officials to visit Taiwan to transact government business; and ultimately restoring full diplomatic recognition.

According to an article in The New Yorker by Evan Osnos, entitled "The Real Risk Behind Trump’s Taiwan Call":

Whether it says it or not, China will regard this as a deeply destabilizing event not because the call materially changes U.S. support for Taiwan—it does not—but because it reveals the incoming Presidency to be volatile and unpredictable. In that sense, the Taiwan call is the latest indicator that Trump the President will be largely indistinguishable from Trump the candidate.

Trump has also shown himself to be highly exploitable on subjects that he does not grasp. He is surrounding himself with ideologically committed advisers who will seek to use those opportunities when they can. We should expect similar moments of exploitation to come on issues that Trump will regard as esoteric, such as the Middle East, health care, immigration, and entitlements.

What's next? How about -- "Just got congrats from Kim Jong-un, supreme leader of some country in Asia, with terrific people! Very nice man, strong leader, a basketball fan -- he likes Dennis Rodman!"