It has been our policy to support an independent Taiwan and given China’s building of military bases on islands within contested boundaries of several South China Sea nations, I think it useful to support diplomatic presence in Taiwan- but to do so openly, carefully and honorably. I fear that Taiwan support can be used as another indirect action intended to push China into accepting our terms for resuming trade relations. If trump were to leverage this as pressure to force agreements and sell-out our historic commitment to Taiwan, I think it will be very damaging in the long-term to our country; that we do not honor our commitments nor our allies; that we use indirect schemes to force agreements upon others. Real diplomacy is desperately needed to increase with China as well. We have sold China most of our leverage by letting them manufacture our electronics, much of our hard and soft goods as well as much of our pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical precursors. China is a proud nation and a rapidly growing economic power. We should be diplomatically working on win-win trade agreements and other inter-relations. We can and must do this without compromising our principles or our allies. If we resort to dirty tricks to win the deal we will lose the future because China has direct control of so much of our National Debt, manufacturing base and geopolitically critical natural resources which could easily be ‘weaponized’ to our great detriment if we try to bludgeon them into submitting to our will in trade relations. trump’s trade-mark sledgehammer diplomacy has nothing to do with actual diplomacy. Actual diplomacy is what we need to have with both Taiwan and China.

Yes. Taiwan is our ally and friend, China isn’t.

Taiwan survives under the thumb of communist China. They have been our friend since the end of the Second World War. Without a doubt we should enhance our diplomatic support.

No matter the Illusion of the “One China” policy. Reality is that Taiwan and China are separated. I’m not sure why we bother to still maintain the fiction. It’s like trying to stay friends with both members of a ugly bitter divorce. Support Taiwan! 🇹🇼

America has to support Taiwan

Yes they been a ally since the 1950’s and need our support

Any and every pushback against the largest threat to democracy globally: China.

Formosa has been independent ever since Chaing Kaishek was run out of China by Mao and they formed an Independent country. We have supported them ever since and should support them again. Right along with all those under SEATO Agreement.

Although we’re currently stumbling at home and abroad in our role as chief exponent and promoter of democratic values, we can and should do what’s right when possible. There will be those who will call us out for hypocrisy as we very publicly reassess our expectations of our own Republic. Sometimes, hypocrisy is a snapshot of a nation captured in a moment of change. Hopefully for the better.

Trade and making money should not be our only goals. Helping a fledgling democracy maintain its independence from China, should be a priority.

YEA

We must support democracies around the world and continue to follow set policy toward Taiwan.

Thanks JimK - good common sense.

China has no reason to annex Taiwan and this aggression is purely a form of a wave of nationalism in China. Taiwan deserves to decide how it runs its country without a looming threat above its head.

Taiwan is its own country. It is not part of China. China wants to absorb as much land as possible. They took over Tibet with no resistance from anyone. Now they are trying to destroy the culture of the Uighurs. They need to be stopped. The world needs to put up a bar to stop them.

Yes, we have a long wonderful history with Taiwan, and should always be improved and strengthened.

This is a tuff one for me, but YES, I fully believe that we should be providing diplomatic support to Taiwan. But let’s be clear and honest about our support... we have become the whore of the world by supporting any regime as long as it is economically friendly to us; we have pulled out of agreements, we have failed to defend our allies and we have verbally attacked our allies at every opportunity while at the same time winking at our adversaries. So the question for me is, how seriously would a diplomatic commitment by the Trump administration be and how seriously would it be viewed and taken? The Kurds sure thought that we were committed, until someone more important came along. OK, we’re in a self- inflicted trade war trade war with China which has already significantly hurt both the US and China as well as the world economy. In this, I believe that the president will allow us to bleed for as long as possible before making a big announcement about a tremendous deal, conveniently close to election time while continuing to tear down the independence of the Federal Reserve as much as possible; Wall Street will be blissfully happy and Lindsey Graham will tell us that the pain of the trade war was a worthwhile and patriotic venture. Will a diplomatic commitment to Taiwan anger China? Sure, but ultimately I feel that China has just as much to lose as the US. Let’s also be clear here, regardless of the administration’s crap explanations, tariffs do NOT get paid to the US Treasury; the American consumer ultimately pays the cost at purchase which is really the cost of American companies having been subsidized and incentivized for years with our tax dollars to move production to China, ostensibly to become more competitive (i.e. more profitable to investors do lobbying has of course played a big part). The US remains in the front position only because our debt is still considered to be the safest in the world. And having ‘safe’ debt combined with the US dollar as the world currency places us firmly in the driver’s seat because it allows us an ability that other nations don’t possess - the ability to print more world currency - US dollars. While on the surface it seems foolish to aggravate China even more at a time when an ill-planned trade war is going on, beware, if the US dollar falls out of favor, and there are moves world wide to make this a reality, Secretary Mnuchin can print and and print and print (and he and his trophy wife can do black leather glove photo ops with sheets of money) yet all it will do is take us further down the trap. It’s true, China is the largest owner of US debt, owning about 5.3% of it. That’s about $1.2 trillion! But don’t be fooled; China is also very smart. For China, ‘long term’ means 30 or 50 years, while for the US, ‘long term’ is always short sighted, meaning until the next election. China is as tied to the value of US debt as the US is to tied to their continued buying of it. Take the chance, stand for what’s right. Provide diplomatic support to Taiwan. But if we offer the support, we must be FULLY committed while knowing it may ruffle a few Chinese feathers along the way.

The U.S.A. should be cooperating with, & supporting, ALL Democracies all over the world !