Trump’s Taiwan Phone Call Part of Strategy to Pressure China On North Korea

Here is the latest on the Trump phone call with the President of Taiwan that the media was initially trying to frame as him bungling US foreign policy:

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s phone call with Taiwan’s president shows the incoming administration believes China should work hard on North Korea as much as it cares about the cross-strait issue, a transition team official was quoted as saying Tuesday.

The official made the remark during a meeting with a group of South Korean lawmakers, pointing out that China has been unwilling to use its influence over Pyongyang even though Beijing provides most of the North’s energy and food supplies, according to the participating lawmakers.

They declined to identify the official.

On Friday, Trump spoke by phone with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, breaking the decadeslong diplomatic tradition that the U.S. has kept under its “One China” policy since severing ties with Taiwan and normalizing relations with Beijing.

China considers Taiwan a renegade province that must be unified with the mainland and rails against any support for Taiwan’s independence or the notion that the island is not part of the country. Despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties, the U.S. has maintained friendly relations with Taiwan.  [Yonhap]

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