It's my Party and I'll Taiwan if I want to

Keeping it real on China

Not the face of a risk-taker

Per yesterday’s post, Beijing is definitely more in Washington’s sights under Trump 2.0 than poor Moscow — a genuine reversal of fortune for Putin. So, now, suddenly, Xi finds himself to be the one less understood, held in more suspicion, and targeted for more tumult — and tough talk.

Where’s my goddamned phone-call? Xi’s gotta be wondering.

[NOTE: they spoke by phone on 17 Jan but apparently not since, while Putin gets 90 minutes on the horn?]

I mean, the signaling could not be more clear: Russia and US sitting down to normalize relations in Riyadh — complete with early planning for a Tump-Putin summit(!), while all Xi gets is the equivalent of a crappy T-shirt: the State Department’s longtime state position about America NOT supporting Taiwan’s independence being excised from its webpage.

Wow. That is some serious disrespect being transmitted.

We’ll get to you, buddy, when we’re ready to get to you.

In diplomatic terms, this is almost ghosting somebody. Yesterday on LI, my friend Ian Bremmer opined:

I immediately concurred.

Trump IS the cool kids’ table right now.

But Trump doesn’t need to flip Russia per se on China. That’s what Taiwan is good for, or nukes in Japan and/or South Korea. Getting cosy with Putin just unnerves Xi slightly, and that’s enough of a payoff in that direction — just like it helps Trump spook Europe.

Trump commands attention like no other POTUS in my lifetime.

For America’s China hawks intent on going to the mattresses over Taiwan, this is all good news — for now, to include Trump’s all-in stance on Israel vis-a-vis Gaza and Iran. It clarifies things, and allows the Pentagon to focus on what it does best: plan extravagantly for a major strategic war with a peer-competitor, which China most definitely is within East Asia — a real Leviathan-like presence.

So, if you’re selling old-school platforms or new-school drones, you see — respectively — salvation and transformation. So, everybody happy … again, for now.

But it’s one of those be-careful-what-you-wish-for things — the Taiwan scenario.

Say Trump cuts some fabulous and showy trade deal with China that sees Xi commit to invest beaucoup bucks in the US and transfer production there — you know, the same thing Honda and Toyota did to become “American made” and get out from under the cloud of “imports” and “job stealing” and “hollowing out America.”

Say, the quid pro quo on that is Trump decides, Taiwan, Shmaiwan!

You take Taiwan off the table and what is there exactly to plan your big war with China around? Some fishing-rights scuffle? Some non-combatant evacuation operation in Africa?

Point being, it all becomes small beans without Taiwan. So don’t think Trump would hesitate for a second to “sell out” Taiwan a la Ukraine right now … IF … he got the right sort of trade/investment deal with Beijing that makes America great again.

With Russia to be settled for the time being, Israel’s successful beat-down of Iran in the works, and maybe THE BIG DEAL with China taking Taiwan off the front burner and maybe even the back burner … and Trump not only secures “peace in our time” and wins his Obama-equalizer Nobel and reinserts America seemingly in the center of all things in this world but … all this shifting around gives the DOGE types enough leeway to radically transform the US military and DoD — and I mean radically, as in, huge personnel cuts and a huge shift in force structure planning from the old platform-centric paradigm to one that embraces a post-human battlespace and totally droned/roboticized warfare where nobody dies but the fireworks are INSANE!

You know, just like pro wrestling.

Anybody who thinks Trump and DOGE aren’t ultimately coming for the Military Industrial Complex are kidding themselves. The platforms cost too much, as do the personnel/troops and all their pensions and lifetime medical.

In Musk’s vision of warfare, all that pretty much goes away, and, I want to say, rightfully so.

Again, if Russia is back to being our friend, and Iran gets curb-stomped by Israel, then it’s just China that we really have to worry about (and yeah, I am not forgetting NorKo — just ignoring it.).

And what do we see on that score?