"... in part because they read my blog too. And look at the brilliance of China’s diplomatic response. Their Foreign Minister labelled the phone call, 'a shenanigan by the Taiwan side.' That is exquisite diplomatic framing, Master Persuader-style. You can see why China and Trump respect each other; they both earned it. Mutual respect is a safe place to be. Relax. Adults are in charge."
Obviously, that's Scott Adams.
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More than that, it's never a good idea to go to war with your best customer. An additional benefit of free trade.
It's hard to simply discount what he says. China isn't going about this with guns blazing by any means.
Well played by Trump and China. This is going to be interesting to watch
I wrote it here earlier today, but if Trump is just halfway successful as President the Dems are in decades long trouble. And the contrast with the Obama failed 8 years will be enormous. A real bad comp and I'm not talking real estate appraisals.
CNN should hire Scott Adams. He could educate the regular dopes they usually have on TV.
What a f'ing idiot.
These "shenanigans" are all fine and good until there is an actual crisis on our hands. And there will be a crisis.
HE's right.
Unleash Chiang Kai-shek!
"These "shenanigans" are all fine and good until there is an actual crisis on our hands. And there will be a crisis.
Just out of curiosity, are you of the opinion that Bush over-reacted after 9/11?
A comment at Insty.
Wouldn't be surprised if Taiwan's Foxconn sez they're going to build Apple Phones here next year.
OTOH, some are treating this call as a crisis.
Shenanigans is a restaurant where you do not want to piss off the wait staff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvVdIg-sTo4
Kristian Holvoet said...
Just out of curiosity, are you of the opinion that Bush over-reacted after 9/11?
Yes.
Bush reacted just about right, but he strangely covered up for the bad guys by sending our attack at Afghanistan Taliban rather than at the Saudi Arab Sunni Murderers who sent their attack at us. That was either a dumb as a rock move, or a clever part of the plot assigned to the Bush Family.
Watching CNN ineptly trying to slander Trump is a sad thing to see. How the mighty have fallen.
tradguy, it's a no-brainer. The Bushes were--and still are--very involved with the Saudis.
I see it as a win/win/win. A small but effective step toward all three nations acting more like adults now, and competing in the marketplace openly rather than pretending there is still a war going on. It's not a danger of starting a war, but rather avoiding one that has been brewing in the dark for decades. The imagined or pretended craziness of Trump is a great excuse for breaking from the past ossified foolishness, much like that misperception worked for Reagan, especially with the USSR. I would not be surprised if Trump accomplished a similar although probably less complete change in China. At the least, a more respectful if not more level playing field between the two nations.
It's amazing what you can get away with or "accomplish" when you don't act like a pussy. Just ask China, or Putin, or Iran. They've been grabbing us there for a while.
"He could educate the regular dopes they usually have on TV."
I doubt it. They are as clueless as ARM.
There are long explanations of why Bush did what he did after 9/11. Here's one.
Here is another.
The bipartisan public consensus that developed prior to the invasion was that Saddam’s regime was an unacceptable threat to American national security in a post-9/11 environment. Regardless of whether one now believes that conclusion was flawed, there never was a consensus that American national security hinged on Iraq’s post-Saddam political stability and evolution.
Bush's mistake was trying to make Iraq a democracy. I thought at the time that, if any Arab country could be ruled without tyrants, Iraq was it. I was wrong. Bush made a huge mistake to appoint Bremer to run Iraq.
The invasion was not. There were good and valid reasons.
Dubyas mistake was hubris and arrogance. He was told many times that... "Hey, it'll be a cakewalk, no problem, what could go wrong". And then instead of realizing he was putting other people's children at risk for a war that did not need to be fought, he pulled the trigger, because "hey, it'll be a cakewalk, no problem, what could go wrong"
Much like not allowing a crisis to go to waste. Arrogant
Michael K said...
There are long explanations of why Bush did what he did after 9/11
Stupid remains the best explanation.
Good God. Adams thinks the Chinese read his blog? China isn't going to reveal just how angry they are. They'll let us know when the time comes.
The Left assumes the Chinese share their appetite for histrionic drama. Nothing could be further from the truth. China and Russia have been waiting for a very long time for an American President that will speak to them as equals and adults with shared interests in peace and prosperity.
Somewhere in China, somebody is reading Mr. Adam's blog.
And to pretend that the Crimea and Tibet are areas where we have some kind of World Police authority is just fucking insulting to our fellow hegemons
W did a good job ensuring calm among the citizenry and was right to after the Taliban. But we should have been out of Afghanistan within 5 years and should have never invaded Iraq. He also should have canceled all visas and immigration from Saudi Arabia until the Saudis wiped out their Wahhabist masters. Saudi Arabia is the country that enabled and spread the most virulent strain of Islam. Irannisnt our enemy. Saudi Arabia is
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/02/politics/donald-trump-taiwan/
"I must point out that there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is an inseparable part of the Chinese territory ... The 'one China' principle is the political foundation of China-US relations.
Adults in charge, and a great reminder that the MSM is the kiddie room.
Unknown said... [hush][hide comment]
Good God. Adams thinks the Chinese read his blog? China isn't going to reveal just how angry they are. They'll let us know when the time comes.
Good God, You believe everything you read?
As for China, what will they do? Can't scare me, I have been living in Ca. all my life, waiting for the big one to send me into the ocean. Spent grade school under my desk once a month or so practicing for A-bomb fallout Have survived global freezing of the seventies, crazy Regan during eighties,ozone layer during nineties,second hand smoke during first decade this century, Russians hacking the election last month,and so far faring pretty well with global warming.
"Stupid remains the best explanation."
I was going to suggest that as the explanation of your comments but you beat me to it.
"I must point out that there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is an inseparable part of the Chinese territory ... The 'one China' principle is the political foundation of China-US relations.
That is just plain silly. We have supported independence and autonomy on a lot less than they have in Taiwan. Yes, we have had a "one China" principle since the country split. But, the Taiwanese sure don't want to be part of your "one China", and we really can't morally support their forcible unification. Nothing magical about One China - it has just been a convenient way to appease them.
Adams is right there (my view is not that surprising, since I said essentially the same thing in an earlier thread). The Chinese aren't going to war over this, or anything close. Forty years ago, they might have. Not any more. For one thing, their economies, and ours, are much too intertwined. Which means that war would likely hurt both of those countries much more than ours. And serious threats of war would be almost as bad, with the companies that use China and Taiwan to assemble their products would look elsewhere for more stable, or, at least alternative, suppliers, such as maybe Vietnam, Malaysia, etc. We are dependent upon Chinese money, but they are even more dependent upon our companies buying their parts and having their products assembled there. Esp. since China is so export dependent, and is undergoing the demographic problem of a rapidly aging population (thanks to their One Child policy).
Both sides handled this well. Trump, the master negotiator started his diplomacy with them with a hard line, and the Chinese blamed it on shenanigans by the Taiwanese - notably not blaming it on Trump himself or the US. They essentially said that they were above it, and were essentially poking fun at their troublesome little brother. If Trump were really trying to antagonize the Chinese, he would up the ante a couple times. But, I don't think that he will.
Anyone hear Krauthammer's bloviation about what a grave mistake Trump had made, how the Chinese had 4000 years of experience in dealing with such matters?
I wanted to barf. Most of those 4000 years have involved China subjugating other peoples, as well as their own.
That reminds me of the claim that Chou En-Lai, Mao's right-hand man, answered "It's too soon to tell" when asked in 1972 what he thought about the French Revolution.
Ah! The sagacious Chinese, with their "long view" of history! If only we in the West were anywhere near as wise and far-seeing!
Trouble is, it was later learned that Chou thought the question referred to the then-recent (1968) demonstrations and riots organized by Paris students led by one Daniel Cohn-Bendit, and NOT to the late-18th century upheaval.
Oh.
Never mind then.
Blogger wholelottasplainin' said...
. . .
That reminds me of the claim that Chou En-Lai, Mao's right-hand man, answered "It's too soon to tell" when asked in 1972 what he thought about the French Revolution.
I hate that quote. If the Chinese take a long view of history, there is no evidence for it in their politics.
Why do progressives assume such a phone call would give China a legitimate reason to go to war...
...but believe that Bush overreacted after the Muslims destroyed the World Trade Center?
The Chinese Communists are very hard-headed realists. They are not sentimental. They will do what is in China's interests, period. If they can bully the US into kowtowing on Taiwan or the South China Sea, they will. If they can't, they won't. They will not do anything to jeopardize China's ability to sell hundreds of billions of goods to the US every year, because it is the trade surpluses generated by that trade, and the US dollar reserves held by China, that are keeping the Chinese economy afloat and the Party in power. If and when that money runs out, the non-performing loans won't be rolled over, hundreds of zombie businesses will close, and millions or tens of millions will be thrown out of work. The Party can't survive that. That's all she wrote.
Mao's right-hand man, answered "It's too soon to tell" when asked in 1972 what he thought about the French Revolution.
I actually agree about the French Revolution and had not heard the contrary opinion.
France has still not gotten over it. The political left in our country, as well as France, is still bound up in its contradictions.
Watching all the MSM go apoplectic has been entertaining, but clearly China has evolved to be an exporter to the rest of the world. It cannot takeover Taiwan and stay in business with all of the exports that have created a booming middle class and much development in China.
The part I don't get is Trump sounding like he's making excuses when he says Taiwan called him, so why not take the call. Well, the call was set up hours ahead of time and was even announced ahead of time in Taiwan. Making what sounds like an excuse decreased the positive effect, and it sounds like throwing Taiwan under the bus.
"Just out of curiosity, are you of the opinion that Bush over-reacted after 9/11?"
No, I don't believe he overreacted. Perhaps he underreacted.
"Just out of curiosity, are you of the opinion that Bush over-reacted after 9/11?"
That presumes that the illegal aggressive wars mounted by the US after 9/11 (and still metastasizing today) were "reactions" to 9/11. It's more accurate to say that 9/11 was a pretext for the aggressive wars they had planned all along.
So, he neither over- or under-reacted; he simply acted criminally. (By "he" I mean "they" in the Administration who advocated, planned, implemented and executed the plans for war.)
"W did a good job ensuring calm among the citizenry and was right to go after the Taliban."
I'd say he/they did a good job inflaming fear among the citizenry, actually. (The Taliban had, by the way, nothing to do with 9/11.)
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