Say insiders who were involved
Immediately after Trump won the November 8 election, his staff compiled a list of foreign leaders with whom to arrange calls.
“Very early on, Taiwan was on that list,” said Stephen Yates, a national security official during the presidency of George W Bush and an expert on China and Taiwan. “Once the call was scheduled, I was told that there was a briefing for Presidentelect Trump. They knew that there would be reaction and potential blowback.” Alex Huang, a spokesman for Tsai, told the Reuters news agency: “Of course both sides agreed ahead of time before making contact.” Tsai’s office said she had told Trump during the phone call that she hoped the United States “would continue to support more opportunities for Taiwan to participate in international issues.” Tsai will have some sympathetic ears in the White House.
Priebus is reported to have visited Taiwan with a Republican delegation in 2011 and in October last year, meeting Tsai before she was elected President. Taiwan Foreign Minister David Lee called him a friend of Taiwan and said his appointment as Trump’s chief of staff was “good news” for the island, according to local media.
At the Republican National Convention in July, Trump’s allies inserted a little-noticed phrase into the party’s platform reaffirming support for six key assurances to Taiwan made by President Ronald Reagan in 1982 — a priority for the Taiwanese Government.
Also written into the 2016 platform was tougher language about China than had been in the party’s platform in its previous iteration four years ago.
Yates said Trump made clear at the time that he wanted to recalibrate relationships around the world and that the US posture toward China was “a personal priority”. Around the same time, Peter Navarro, one of Trump’s top economic and Asia advisers, penned an op-ed saying that the US must not “dump Taiwan” and needs a comprehensive strategy to bolster what he termed “a beacon of democracy”.
Trump’s advisers have said the communication does not signify any formal shift in long-standing US relations with Taiwan or China, even as they acknowledge that the decision to break with nearly 40 years of US diplomatic practice was a calculated choice.
“Of course all head-of-state calls are well planned,” said Richard Grenell, a former State Department official who has advised the Trump transition effort.
The United States maintains a military relationship with Taiwan, which Beijing considers a province, but closed its embassy there in 1979. Republican administrations since then have emphasised Taiwan’s democratic traditions and flirted with the idea of a shift in policy, but none have held public discussions with a Taiwanese leader.
By irritating if not angering the Chinese Government with his talk with Tsai, Trump showed his core supporters in the US that he would follow through with his promise to get tough on China, some observers said.
Walter Lohman, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, said the call with Tsai “was deliberate. It was not an accident. Obviously he made a conscious decision to have the call arranged. She called him, but there was an agreement for it”.