[POLL] United States Presidential Elections 2016

[fatkrakr]

So that's a no then, your not aware of the situation's he's just got involved in and commented on.

Further highlighted by the fact you don't understand that the way those phone calls were then communicated publicly are setting foreign policy for the US.

Trump have just overturn a US foreign policy that's been in place since 1979 and favour one nuclear power over its rival and neighbor, rather than remaining neutral.

So yes he has set foreign policy, and one that differs markedly from previous administrations (both Democrate and Republican).

Oh and what any other government says is a straw man, you want Trump to sort out your yard and let other countries sort out theirs. That isn't what he's doing.


You are aware that it possible to consider a situation and show concern about it without it becoming all consuming?

This is a potential change to US foreign policy, and such will impact on the wider world.

I also have family and friends in the US, and work for an American company, so if you don't mind I will carry on discussing the situation, because yes they will impact on me.

So this phone call is going to bring about a war, but all the weapons we have sold them since the 70s isn't a problem? I think China is handing out kool-aide and you grabbed 2 glasses.

 

[Scaff]

So this phone call is going to bring about a war, but all the weapons we have sold them since the 70s isn't a problem? I think China is handing out kool-aide and you grabbed 2 glasses.

When did I say it was going to start a war?

I didn't.

I said it was a worrying change in US policy with potential ramifications, and that it is setting foreign policy.

Rather that address that you have thrown down another straw man.

 

[TenEightyOne]

So this phone call is going to bring about a war, but all the weapons we have sold them since the 70s isn't a problem?

Nobody mentioned a war, oh you Americans!

The diplomatic situation around parts of China like Taiwan and Japan (depending on who you agree with) is very difficult. Recognition of Taiwan is a minefield, at least figuratively, and at least for now. Why does trump feel the need to intervene in other countries' diplomatic issues so quickly?

I think China is handing out kool-aide and you grabbed 2 glasses.

Er, you rather lost me there.

 

[Sprite]

So this phone call is going to bring about a war, but all the weapons we have sold them since the 70s isn't a problem? I think China is handing out kool-aide and you grabbed 2 glasses.

errr

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-38194371

Not sure about that, China is already lodging formal complaints.

 

[Dotini]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-38194371

...China is already lodging formal complaints.

True, but from your article:

Earlier, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi dismissed the call as a "petty trick" by Taiwan, Chinese state media said.

What happened?
Mr Trump tweeted on Friday that Ms Tsai had called him to congratulate him on winning the US election.

His team said that the US president-elect had also congratulated Ms Tsai on becoming the president of Taiwan last January.

No US president or president-elect has spoken directly to a Taiwanese leader for decades.

Following media reports pointing out the risks of angering China, Mr Trump tweeted: "Interesting how the US sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call."

The White House has said Mr Trump's conversation does not signal any change in US policy. US media reported that the White House learned of the call only after it had happened.

Mr Trump's spokeswoman said he was "well aware" of US policy towards Taiwan.


Bottom line, what we have here is a tempest on a tea pot. No use in freaking out until you really have to.

 

[fatkrakr]

Ok you guys pretend you didn't mean war by "ramifications" , but I asked what you meant by it and didn't get a reply.

If selling a country weapons to defend itself from another country isn't acknowledging them as country then nothing will, certainly not a phone call.

The President didn't call them they called him and he accepted. Some might call that being polite.




Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid

 

[Scaff]

Ok you guys pretend you didn't mean war by "ramifications" , but I asked what you meant by it and didn't get a reply.

If selling a country weapons to defend itself from another country isn't acknowledging them as country then nothing will, certainly not a phone call.

The President didn't call them they called him and he accepted. Some might call that being polite.

If I want to say war then I will say war, you don't get to speak for me, don't do so again.

And I've not said that selling them arms isn't an issue, however publicly acknowledging them as a country is far more of an issue for China.

That they called him is irrelevant, he didn't have to tweak about it, nor did he have to reverse US foreign policy that has been in place since 1979 and spark a diplomatic complaint from China.

Don't forget you started by claiming this has nothing to do with foreign policy, China seems to disagree.

Oh and what could ramifications look like? Trade barriers and tariffs, further dismissal of US trademark recognition, increased state sponsored industrial espionage, a more leaniant approach to North Korea, a further ramp up in the South China Sea.

I could go on.

 

[fatkrakr]

If I want to say war then I will say war, you don't get to speak for me, don't do so again.

And I've not said that selling them arms isn't an issue, however publicly acknowledging them as a country is far more of an issue for China.

That they called him is irrelevant, he didn't have to tweak about it, nor did he have to reverse US foreign policy that has been in place since 1979 and spark a diplomatic complaint from China.

Don't forget you started by claiming this has nothing to do with foreign policy, China seems to disagree.

Oh and what could ramifications look like? Trade barriers and tariffs, further dismissal of US trademark recognition, increased state sponsored industrial espionage, a more leaniant approach to North Korea, a further ramp up in the South China Sea.

I could go on.

So business as usual from China.

 

[Scaff]

So business as usual from China.

No.

If you think China is doing the maximum it could to the US right now then you seriously underestimate them.

However thanks for totally ignoring the quite clear qualifiers I used in my post to show this would be an escalation.

 

[Dotini]

It's refreshing that Trump is more honest, direct, open, and non-PC than previous politicians. He has the power to accidentally do harm, to be sure. But the situation vis-a-vis Taiwan and China is neither straightforward nor healthy. Maybe The Donald in his simple, Forrest Gumpion way, can cut the knot.

 

[Sprite]

Bottom line, what we have here is a tempest on a tea pot. No use in freaking out until you really have to.

The Chinese love drama though. Plus I'm personally not too worried about if they will start flinging the odd nuke across to the USA or UK etc but they might like to use this to push their agenda in a more forceful manner with Taiwan. This could escalate to something a little more involved and possibly drag other local nations into something they didn’t want.

It could amount to nothing but it goes to show he's not very tacktful and doesnt show well for future encounters. It also shows the Chinese are not going to let anything go unoticed.

 

[Dotini]

The Chinese love drama though. Plus I'm personally not too worried about if they will start flinging the odd nuke across to the USA or UK etc but they might like to use this to push their agenda in a more forceful manner with Taiwan. This could escalate to something a little more involved and possibly drag other local nations into something they didn’t want.

It could amount to nothing but it goes to show he's not very tacktful and doesnt show well for future encounters. It also shows the Chinese are not going to let anything go unoticed.

Tact was always considered by Gore Vidal to be the most important quality of a politician. We all know The Donald lacks tactfulness. This question is, are both Gore Vidal and the concept of tactfulness both dead in the modern world?

 

[Scaff]

It's refreshing that Trump is more honest, direct, open, and non-PC than previous politicians. He has the power to accidentally do harm, to be sure. But the situation vis-a-vis Taiwan and China is neither straightforward nor healthy. Maybe The Donald in his simple, Forrest Gumpion way, can cut the knot.

Direct and non-pc I would agree on; honest I would outright disagree with.

However I can see Trump resolving the China / Taiwan situation at all. Doesn't bode well for Israel and Palestine.

 

[fatkrakr]

No.

If you think China is doing the maximum it could to the US right now then you seriously underestimate them.

However thanks for totally ignoring the quite clear qualifiers I used in my post to show this would be an escalation.

I'm not ignoring it, its been going on for years. I and hopefully our new president are just choosing to ignore this bit of crying from China. Our new president took a phone call that China didn't like, Oh well that's Chinas problem. I don't want a president doing or not doing something just because another country don't like it.

 

[Scaff]

I'm not ignoring it, its been going on for years. I and hopefully our new president are just choosing to ignore this bit of crying from China. Our new president took a phone call that China didn't like, Oh well that's Chinas problem. I don't want a president doing or not doing something just because another country don't like it.

I said you ignored the qualifiers about escalation in my post not the China / Taiwan situation. So either you didn't understand what that means (which is fine) or you deliberately misrepresented it (which is not fine).

No it's not China's problem, it's also the US's problem now. This is the reason why isolationism (which is part of what Trump sold) and the man himself don't work as a package.

 

[Dotini]

I'm not ignoring it, its been going on for years. I and hopefully our new president are just choosing to ignore this bit of crying from China. Our new president took a phone call that China didn't like, Oh well that's Chinas problem. I don't want a president doing or not doing something just because another country don't like it.

He's honest in the sense that the window into his soul is more open. But of course he knows the value of beautiful, useful or necessary lies.

You needn't worry about Israel. Trump's daughter Ivanka and son-in-law are both orthodox and observant.

 

[fatkrakr]

I said you ignored the qualifiers in my post not the China / Taiwan situation.

No it's not China's problem, it's also the US's problem now. This is the reason why isolationism (which is part of what Trump sold) and the man himself don't work as a package.

Its not a problem unless we acknowledge it or China escalates things.

 

[Scaff]

He's honest in the sense that the window into his soul is more open. But of course he know the value of beautiful, useful or necessary lies.

You needn't worry about Israel. Trump's daughter Ivanka and son-in-law are both orthodox and observant.

I think you meant to quote me.

Lies fall into many more categories than that, including self serving ones, and he's managed many of those at the expense of others.

I also worry about both sides in that particular situation.

Its not a problem unless we acknowledge it or China escalates things.

The problem is that the door has been opened, ignoring China's complaint is a form of acknowledgement and would be seen as such.

Trump isn't even in office yet and is popping open a good collection of Pandora's boxes, and you seem to be suggesting that the best course is to let him do so and refuse to ignore any comments from the countries he's just insulted.

I see a new cold war coming if that's the intended path.

 

[fatkrakr]

Trump isn't even in office yet and is popping open a good collection of Pandora's boxes, and you seem to be suggesting that the best course is to let him do so and refuse to ignore any comments from the countries he's just insulted.

No what I am suggesting is we ignore China's crying about this phone call because that's all it was a congratulatory phone call no more no less. This is just China flinging crap and seeing what sticks.

 

[polysmut]

The tweet referencing the "President of Taiwan" is a change from the term "President on Taiwan", which Washington traditionally uses to avoid upsetting Beijing.

 

[mustafur]

Whilst I completely disagree with how China treats Taiwan and makes others treat it as some non country, not sure it's a good idea to start possible Cold war.

However it should be noted China has been Strong arming lately, South China Sea for example and do we really want to let china roll over everyone.

If Trump somehow brokers some alliance with Russia, China has no powerful allies, whilst China it self has Countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and India right next to them with powerful Armys(especially India who has a better Navy then China) who are definitely not going to be on their side if hell breaks lose.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Whilst I completely disagree with how China treats Taiwan and makes others treat it as some non country, not sure it's a good idea to start possible Cold war.

China has a trade surplus with the U.S. of $1/3 trillion. What do you think the odds of a cold war are?

 

[mustafur]

China has a trade surplus with the U.S. of $1/3 trillion. What do you think the odds of a cold war are?

Reasonable, China is very nationalistic and with an Iron fist government you don't know what they are capable of, not that it would benefit them in the slightest and they would easily lose.

 

[Dotini]

Whilst I completely disagree with how China treats Taiwan and makes others treat it as some non country, not sure it's a good idea to start possible Cold war.

Does China need to be confronted in the South China Sea?
Does China need to be confronted over currency manipulation?
Does China need to be confronted over issues such as intellectual property rights, one-sided trade policies, commodities dumping, etc.?
Does China need to be confronted over the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) which links China, Russia, and India in military cooperation with Iran as an observer member?

Trump has mentioned almost all of these pseudo-Casus Belli over the past 18 months. "CHIna" is one of his boogeymen, plainly. Of course he is going to tweak them. He's promised to try to repatriate jobs lost from the US to them in the age of globalization. Now we are in a new age of populist nationalism, I reckon.

 

[Scaff]

No what I am suggesting is we ignore China's crying about this phone call because that's all it was a congratulatory phone call no more no less. This is just China flinging crap and seeing what sticks.

No call of this nature is just a phone call, as this situation highlights.

The only way that would be the case is if you ignore the history of China and Taiwan since 1949, US foreign policy on it since 1979 and pretend Trump did send the tweets about it he did.

This is akin to Clinton or a random US state Governor calling the winner of next year's French election, congratulating them on behalf of the whole of the US and then being recognised as the POTUS publicly by the new French leader.

If you don't think that's grounds for a diplomatic incident and would just be a phone call then you gave no idea at all how inter country diplomacy works.

China has a trade surplus with the U.S. of $1/3 trillion. What do you think the odds of a cold war are?

High.

China has nothing to fear from it people in comparison to the US. The POTUS is around for eight years max and is elected by the people. China doesn't play by those rules at all and has a historic track record of being quite willing to let it's people suffer to further it's political aims ( I don't see any evidence of US policy letting 15 to 45 million people starve to death).

China could also dump the 1.3 trillion dollars it has in US bonds and cripple the US markets, now while the US could retaliate in a similar (but lower amount) manner, I know which country I would put my money on getting rid of its leader first in that scenario.

Does China need to be confronted in the South China Sea?
Does China need to be confronted over currency manipulation?
Does China need to be confronted over issues such as intellectual property rights, one-sided trade policies, commodities dumping, etc.?
Does China need to be confronted over the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) which links China, Russia, and India in military cooperation with Iran as an observer member?

Trump has mentioned almost all of these pseudo-Casus Belli over the past 18 months. "CHIna" is one of his boogeymen, plainly. Of course he is going to tweak them. He's promised to try to repatriate jobs lost from the US to them in the age of globalization. Now we are in a new age of populist nationalism, I reckon.

Yes it most certainly does, however this is almost certainly not the way to go about it.

Whilst I completely disagree with how China treats Taiwan and makes others treat it as some non country, not sure it's a good idea to start possible Cold war.

However it should be noted China has been Strong arming lately, South China Sea for example and do we really want to let china roll over everyone.

If Trump somehow brokers some alliance with Russia, China has no powerful allies, whilst China it self has Countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and India right next to them with powerful Armys(especially India who has a better Navy then China) who are definitely not going to be on their side if hell breaks lose.

You seem to have forgotten about the country with the largest standing military in the world.

Also China has a significantly bigger navy than India, now which one is 'better' is very subjective, but in terms of force units it can field China is twice the size.


http://www.globalfirepower.com/coun...&country1=china&country2=india&Submit=COMPARE

 

[fatkrakr]

No call of this nature is just a phone call, as this situation highlights.

The only way that would be the case is if you ignore the history of China and Taiwan since 1949, US foreign policy on it since 1979 and pretend Trump did send the tweets about it he did.

This is akin to Clinton or a random US state Governor calling the winner of next year's French election, congratulating them on behalf of the whole of the US and then being recognised as the POTUS publicly by the new French leader.

If you don't think that's grounds for a diplomatic incident and would just be a phone call then you gave no idea at all how inter country diplomacy works.



High.

China has nothing to fear from it people in comparison to the US. The POTUS is around for eight years max and is elected by the people. China doesn't play by those rules at all and has a historic track record of being quite willing to let it's people suffer to further it's political aims ( I don't see any evidence of US policy letting 15 to 45 million people starve to death).

China could also dump the 1.3 trillion dollars it has in US bonds and cripple the US markets, now while the US could retaliate in a similar (but lower amount) manner, I know which country I would put my money on getting rid of its leader first in that scenario.


Yes it most certainly does, however this is almost certainly not the way to go about it.

In no way should the USA allow any foreign government dictate to whom we do and don't talk to. If that starts a "diplomatic incident" so be it. It wont be the first incident and it wont be the last.

Thank god it appears political correctness is dying in the USA because this is wear its got us, a government afraid to take phone calls cause it might offend someone. Kids who cant wear a shirt with the American flag on it to school. Lord forbid the word god appearing in public.

 

[Scaff]

In no way should the USA allow any foreign government dictate to whom we do and don't talk to. If that starts a "diplomatic incident" so be it. It wont be the first incident and it wont be the last.

It's not a black and white situation, but your opinion on the US and it's right to say what it likes about other countries is duly noted.

I'm sure you will in future extend the exact same right to other countries, as will Trump.

Thank god it appears political correctness is dying in the USA because this is wear its got us, a government afraid to take phone calls cause it might offend someone. Kids who cant wear a shirt with the American flag on it to school. Lord forbid the word god appearing in public.

You do love a strawman don't you, but it's the dog whistle claims that are the icing on the cake for me.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6971952

Oh and which God, quite a few exist.

 

[fatkrakr]

It's not a black and white situation, but your opinion on the US and it's right to say what it likes about other countries is duly noted.

I'm sure you will in future extend the exact same right to other countries, as will Trump.

What was said about another country? Now your just making things up.

I could care less what another country thinks or says about US only what they actually do.

You do love a strawman

I don't even know what that means.


Edit: Any god you choose. I believe in none. That doesn't mean though others cant display their belief.

 

[mustafur]

You seem to have forgotten about the country with the largest standing military in the world.

Also China has a significantly bigger navy than India, now which one is 'better' is very subjective, but in terms of force units it can field China is twice the size.


http://www.globalfirepower.com/coun...&country1=china&country2=india&Submit=COMPARE

I have not forgotten, standing army is basically useless in todays world if we are talking about Nation vs Nation war, it's more about how much military equipment you have and how much of your army can be involved with it, then it comes to how advanced that equipment is.

India's Navy is more advanced then China's, China just has more units. either way it wouldn't be China vs India, or Vs the US.

It would be China vs USA, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, India, Australia, NATO etc.

China doesn't have the allies to sustain a threat with force, all it could do is sustain the threat with Force on it's own land, outside that they are easily beaten.

 

[mister dog]

Prepare for 4 years of Trump being under a magnifying glass from the liberal side. Anything he says or does will be used to try and start a smear campaign. The media has tried to plant the idea in people's heads that he's an evil fascist that doesn't know what he's doing, and they are going to keep following up on that note i suppose.

They even had to write statements after the elections that they were going to try and be 'more objective' for gods sake, that's how bad it has become. It was so annoying for me to see that happening, every time you opened a mainstream newspaper it was about how bad Trump was, and Hillary was a saint. Blatantly ignoring all her scandals, the corruption of the Clinton foundation and her dangerous rhetoric vis a vis Russia (now that's WW3 if i ever see it).