Good cop bad cop, the crazier Trump and Pompeo go the more Biden has for negotiation fodder
Taiwan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter Gollevainen
- Start date
Mr T
Senior Member
Question is when will he do it. He has lots of domestic priorities, so re-establishing some bureaucratic constraints on interacting with another state may not happen that quickly.
He may also decide to put in place a modified protocol instead of simply bringing back the old system.
Then again I can see him doing a reset to show the Republicans who's boss.
Skywatcher
Captain
It'll only take a brief amount of time and actual work to reverse it (and the career State Department people will be doing the actual paperwork anyways).
Biden will need to do it anyways, otherwise it'll be impossible to even talk to Beijing on things like Best Korea and its nukes and terrorist financing, for starters.
My guess is Pompeo did it to fleece enough gullible Taiwanese for donations to whatever political project he comes up with in the future.
Exactly, if fat Pomp can change the whole status quo with a mere tweet. And an email to staffs. Why can't the incoming administrations do the same? Particularly, one that's desperate for any external help in re-jump the economy that's in danger if flatlining. After all it is in their interest to jettison the little islanders again!
Mr T
Senior Member
So if it isn't instantly reversed presumably that can be taken as Biden laying down a marker to China.
It would be very interesting if China refused to speak with the USA over a prolonged period of time concerning what is internal bureaucracy. US officials being able to do something isn't the same as them doing it. For example, who could attend Taiwan's national day would largely be down to a decision by high-ranking members of the US government or its agencies even without technical restrictions. Biden could in theory keep things as they are now but stop top officials from visiting Taiwan on his own discretion.
But if China wants those theoretical barriers reinstated then as silentlurker says Biden could do so and say he was making a concession.
Skywatcher
Captain
Not necessarily. (Instantly in Washington DC timescales would be something like several months).
It must have been increasingly clear to almost everyone that what the US has done on Taiwan is about the US, not about the security and interest of Taiwan. The most recent directive by Mike Pompeo to abolish all restrictions with regards to interactions with Taiwan officials is no exception.
The Trump administration and US Congress's increasing aggressiveness on Taiwan issue is really an emotional outlet of deep psychological frustration, anger and, indeed, desperation against an opponent that has outplayed the US in the last four years in every which way. The anti-China policy has been one of the central foreign policies of the Trump administration and it has failed spectacularly.
In the waning days of the current administration, the worst Secretary of State in US history, in the wake of an unprecedented attack against the Capitol and Congress by a mob insurrection instigated by his boss, the worst President in the US history, issued the directive to try to humiliate the unbreakable China and leave some roadblocks to the next administration.
The effect of this directive would have been both shocking and humiliating for China twenty years ago. It would be insulting and destabilizing a decade ago. Today, it will likely elicit some diplomatic response from China. Other than that, it will probably merely serve to build up the case for an accelerated showdown on Taiwan at a time of its choosing. Why? Because China knows this directive may be short-lived, and will not have the ripple effects internationally that it would have feared a decade ago. It also knows that today's China has the military power to intervene if red lines on Taiwan are crossed (and Pompeo is smart enough to call Taiwan the "free China" in his directive). Most importantly, China knows that time is on its side and that change in the balance of power favorable to China has been accelerating. It is not China that is getting desperate.
Let me emphasize again. This directive is not about Taiwan, it's not even about China. It's more about a horrible American political figure, in the last days of a terrible government, amidst the accelerating decline of a superpower.
I'll post the venerable Indian diplomat, ambassador M. K. Bhadrakumar's latest blog article for an excellent summary.
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Posted on by
Atonement becomes an inevitable process as the decline of a superpower begins accelerating. But imperial powers find it genuinely difficult to learn to become a ‘normal’ country. That dichotomy could cause traumatic events. The by an army of Visigoths, northern European barbarian tribesmen, led by a general called Alaric, 1610 years ago, was one such event. The Suez crisis of 1956 was another.
America’s atonement is going to be excruciatingly painful and often humiliating unless it begins straightaway. Yet, there are no signs of any recognition in the Beltway that the US’ capacity to impose its will on the world community is rapidly evaporating. Just glance through the . The activities of secretary of state Mike Pompeo in the past few days truly remind us of Nero fiddling while Rome burned:
To be continued...
The Trump administration and US Congress's increasing aggressiveness on Taiwan issue is really an emotional outlet of deep psychological frustration, anger and, indeed, desperation against an opponent that has outplayed the US in the last four years in every which way. The anti-China policy has been one of the central foreign policies of the Trump administration and it has failed spectacularly.
In the waning days of the current administration, the worst Secretary of State in US history, in the wake of an unprecedented attack against the Capitol and Congress by a mob insurrection instigated by his boss, the worst President in the US history, issued the directive to try to humiliate the unbreakable China and leave some roadblocks to the next administration.
The effect of this directive would have been both shocking and humiliating for China twenty years ago. It would be insulting and destabilizing a decade ago. Today, it will likely elicit some diplomatic response from China. Other than that, it will probably merely serve to build up the case for an accelerated showdown on Taiwan at a time of its choosing. Why? Because China knows this directive may be short-lived, and will not have the ripple effects internationally that it would have feared a decade ago. It also knows that today's China has the military power to intervene if red lines on Taiwan are crossed (and Pompeo is smart enough to call Taiwan the "free China" in his directive). Most importantly, China knows that time is on its side and that change in the balance of power favorable to China has been accelerating. It is not China that is getting desperate.
Let me emphasize again. This directive is not about Taiwan, it's not even about China. It's more about a horrible American political figure, in the last days of a terrible government, amidst the accelerating decline of a superpower.
I'll post the venerable Indian diplomat, ambassador M. K. Bhadrakumar's latest blog article for an excellent summary.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted on by
The US Congress in night session after rioters were evicted and Capitol building was sanitised, Washington, DC, January 6, 2021
Atonement becomes an inevitable process as the decline of a superpower begins accelerating. But imperial powers find it genuinely difficult to learn to become a ‘normal’ country. That dichotomy could cause traumatic events. The by an army of Visigoths, northern European barbarian tribesmen, led by a general called Alaric, 1610 years ago, was one such event. The Suez crisis of 1956 was another.
America’s atonement is going to be excruciatingly painful and often humiliating unless it begins straightaway. Yet, there are no signs of any recognition in the Beltway that the US’ capacity to impose its will on the world community is rapidly evaporating. Just glance through the . The activities of secretary of state Mike Pompeo in the past few days truly remind us of Nero fiddling while Rome burned:
- Sanctioning Cuba’s commercial bank Banco Financiero International S.A. as its profits “disproportionately benefit the Cuban military rather than independent Cuban entrepreneurs” (January 1, 2021);
- Penning an op-Ed on China’s “opaque and threatening nuclear weapons buildup” (January 4);
- Sanctioning 17 companies and one individual in connection with Iran’s metals industry, whose revenues fund that country’s “destabilising activities around the world” (January 5);
- Dictating to Caracas that Juan Guaidó shall remain Venezuela’s legitimate head of state notwithstanding the election of a new National Assembly (January 5);
- Threatening China with more sanctions and “other restrictions” unless the “democracy activists” in Hong Kong are “released immediately and unconditionally” (January 6);
- Condemning Hanoi’s conviction and sentencing of 3 journalists “in a troubling and accelerating trend of arrests and convictions of Vietnamese citizens exercising rights enshrined in Vietnam’s constitution,” and demanding that the journalists be “released immediately and unconditionally” along with “all those unjustly detained” and to let Vietnamese people “express their views freely, without fear of retaliation” (January 7);
- Designating Falih al-Fayyadh, Chairman of Iraqi Popular Mobilization Commission and former National Security Advisor to the Iraqi Prime Minister under the US legislation known as Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (January 8);
- Declaring null and void all limits (standing “contact guidelines”) to US’ interaction with Taiwanese (January 9);
- Condemning the Iranian parliament’s legislation requiring expulsion of International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear inspectors unless all US sanctions are lifted (January 9).
To be continued...
... Continued
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Pompeo is acting in a frenzy in his last days in Foggy Bottom. By dusk today, probably more such missiles are on their way. The pathetic part is that he is blissfully unaware that he is firing away scud missiles, like Saddam in the Gulf War. Indeed, Pompeo casts the US in a false light as a blundering giant out of touch with reality.
Pompeo’s behaviour can only complicate matters for the incoming Biden Administration. Nancy Pelosi should do something about it, alongside the collar she plans to put around Trump’s thick neck. Seriously, is anyone paying heed to the damage Pompeo is still capable of causing to US interests?
The American opinion generally tends to regard him as a political operator and climber and an errand boy of the Koch brothers. This is what the Nation once wrote of Pompeo in a piece titled :
“Pompeo has long been one of the most conflicted political figures in the conflicted city of Washington, thanks to his ties to the privately held and secretive global business empire that has played a pivotal role in advancing his political career. Pompeo came out of the same Wichita, Kansas, business community where the Koch family’s oil-and-gas conglomerate is headquartered. Indeed, Pompeo built his own company with seed money from Koch Venture Capital.”
Some time ago, Susan Glasser at The New Yorker magazine did a fantastic after Trump picked him to replace Rex Tillerson. Glasser traced his amazing journey from being a self-styled progressive who turned into Tea Party activist and finally ended up as a heartland evangelist.
Pompeo’s pattern of deference to his political benefactors has stood him in good stead with a self-absorbed president. Glasser quoted a former American ambassador as telling her, “He’s like a heat-seeking missile for Trump’s ass.” No doubt, Pompeo was among the most sycophantic and obsequious people around Trump.
But then every dog has its day and with a distracted president brooding in the White House, Pompeo seems to think his day has come. He seems to be pushing a personal agenda before a target audience in America. Glasser wrote,
“Pompeo has been more political than any other recent Secretary and with the exception, perhaps, of Hillary Clinton. In some ways, he’s approached the job like a future Presidential candidate, hosting Republican strategists such as Karl Rove and wealthy patrons such as the former Goldman Sachs C.E.O. Lloyd Blankfein at regular “Madison Dinners,” named for the fifth Secretary of State… The dinners are orchestrated by Pompeo’s wife, Susan, who travels frequently with him and whose unusual requests are now being investigated by congressional Democrats after a whistle-blower complained that the couple was inappropriately using government resources and treating Pompeo’s security detail as “UberEats with guns.”
Indeed, Pompeo’s concern for his own political image seems to shape such behaviour projecting himself as a hardcore nationalist who truly believes in the New American Century. But Pompeo is a clever man. He has neatly sidestepped the North Korean leader to his officials “to develop a more advanced nuclear weapons system with multiple warheads, underwater-launched nuclear missiles, spy satellites and nuclear-powered submarines.”
Pompeo refuses to take note of Kim’s description of the US as DPRK’s “biggest enemy” in his address at the Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea in Pyongyang on January 5. Certainly, he wouldn’t be party to highlighting that Trump’s biggest foreign-policy trophy, his bonhomie with Kim, is in reality another sham.
But Pompeo tripped by bad-mouthing the communist leadership in Hanoi. He didn’t realise, perhaps, that by issuing such a on an influential ASEAN country and emerging regional power, he may have only drawn attention to the collapse of his pet project to persuade Vietnam to join the Quad and the US-led Indo-Pacific strategy. (Pompeo even made a visit to Hanoi in end-October, but, it seems, he got snubbed.)
Pompeo’s press statement of January 9 on also becomes a case study. No doubt, Iran has shown strategic defiance. But it underscores, above all, that Tehran threw Pompeo’s famous (which he delivered as an ultimatum to the Iranian leadership during a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC, in May 2018) straight into the dustbin.
Interestingly, Pompeo is no more in a mood to threaten Iran. Instead, he reminds Tehran that “Iran has a legal treaty obligation to allow IAEA inspector access pursuant to Iran’s NPT-required safeguards agreement. Violating those obligations would thus go beyond Iran’s past actions inconsistent with its JCPOA nuclear commitments.”
Pompeo is urging Tehran to abide by the JCPOA! The wheel has come full circle. He and Trump did everything conceivable to debunk and destroy the JCPOA. Pompeo now wants it to be preserved!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pompeo is acting in a frenzy in his last days in Foggy Bottom. By dusk today, probably more such missiles are on their way. The pathetic part is that he is blissfully unaware that he is firing away scud missiles, like Saddam in the Gulf War. Indeed, Pompeo casts the US in a false light as a blundering giant out of touch with reality.
Pompeo’s behaviour can only complicate matters for the incoming Biden Administration. Nancy Pelosi should do something about it, alongside the collar she plans to put around Trump’s thick neck. Seriously, is anyone paying heed to the damage Pompeo is still capable of causing to US interests?
The American opinion generally tends to regard him as a political operator and climber and an errand boy of the Koch brothers. This is what the Nation once wrote of Pompeo in a piece titled :
“Pompeo has long been one of the most conflicted political figures in the conflicted city of Washington, thanks to his ties to the privately held and secretive global business empire that has played a pivotal role in advancing his political career. Pompeo came out of the same Wichita, Kansas, business community where the Koch family’s oil-and-gas conglomerate is headquartered. Indeed, Pompeo built his own company with seed money from Koch Venture Capital.”
Some time ago, Susan Glasser at The New Yorker magazine did a fantastic after Trump picked him to replace Rex Tillerson. Glasser traced his amazing journey from being a self-styled progressive who turned into Tea Party activist and finally ended up as a heartland evangelist.
Pompeo’s pattern of deference to his political benefactors has stood him in good stead with a self-absorbed president. Glasser quoted a former American ambassador as telling her, “He’s like a heat-seeking missile for Trump’s ass.” No doubt, Pompeo was among the most sycophantic and obsequious people around Trump.
But then every dog has its day and with a distracted president brooding in the White House, Pompeo seems to think his day has come. He seems to be pushing a personal agenda before a target audience in America. Glasser wrote,
“Pompeo has been more political than any other recent Secretary and with the exception, perhaps, of Hillary Clinton. In some ways, he’s approached the job like a future Presidential candidate, hosting Republican strategists such as Karl Rove and wealthy patrons such as the former Goldman Sachs C.E.O. Lloyd Blankfein at regular “Madison Dinners,” named for the fifth Secretary of State… The dinners are orchestrated by Pompeo’s wife, Susan, who travels frequently with him and whose unusual requests are now being investigated by congressional Democrats after a whistle-blower complained that the couple was inappropriately using government resources and treating Pompeo’s security detail as “UberEats with guns.”
Indeed, Pompeo’s concern for his own political image seems to shape such behaviour projecting himself as a hardcore nationalist who truly believes in the New American Century. But Pompeo is a clever man. He has neatly sidestepped the North Korean leader to his officials “to develop a more advanced nuclear weapons system with multiple warheads, underwater-launched nuclear missiles, spy satellites and nuclear-powered submarines.”
Pompeo refuses to take note of Kim’s description of the US as DPRK’s “biggest enemy” in his address at the Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea in Pyongyang on January 5. Certainly, he wouldn’t be party to highlighting that Trump’s biggest foreign-policy trophy, his bonhomie with Kim, is in reality another sham.
But Pompeo tripped by bad-mouthing the communist leadership in Hanoi. He didn’t realise, perhaps, that by issuing such a on an influential ASEAN country and emerging regional power, he may have only drawn attention to the collapse of his pet project to persuade Vietnam to join the Quad and the US-led Indo-Pacific strategy. (Pompeo even made a visit to Hanoi in end-October, but, it seems, he got snubbed.)
Pompeo’s press statement of January 9 on also becomes a case study. No doubt, Iran has shown strategic defiance. But it underscores, above all, that Tehran threw Pompeo’s famous (which he delivered as an ultimatum to the Iranian leadership during a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC, in May 2018) straight into the dustbin.
Interestingly, Pompeo is no more in a mood to threaten Iran. Instead, he reminds Tehran that “Iran has a legal treaty obligation to allow IAEA inspector access pursuant to Iran’s NPT-required safeguards agreement. Violating those obligations would thus go beyond Iran’s past actions inconsistent with its JCPOA nuclear commitments.”
Pompeo is urging Tehran to abide by the JCPOA! The wheel has come full circle. He and Trump did everything conceivable to debunk and destroy the JCPOA. Pompeo now wants it to be preserved!
All evangelicals secretly want to die, the key is they want everyone else to die along with them, even if it means stringing along gullible taiwan independence types (and believe me i know the type, i have family who are the spitting image of these types) and barren cat ladies.