Here it is a bit modified and extended.
According to the news reports rapidly flooding the global media, the US President-elect Donald Trump has spoken with the Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen over the telephone on Friday.
It is a departure of mammoth proportion from the established practice where it is believed that no US President or President-elect has ever spoken to a Taiwanese President ever since the US severed its diplomatic ties with the island nation in 1979.
China is bound to be furious over it as it considers Taiwan a part of its ‘One China’ vision and doesn’t take any move lightly that questions its right over the patches of territories it claims.
The world sees how China angrily reacts on Dalai Lama’s global outreach efforts for Tibet or when it issues stapled visa to Arunachal Pradesh residents in India as it considers Arunachal its own territory.
The Financial Times which first reported about the call wrote, “Although it is not clear if the Trump transition team intended the conversation to signal a broader change in US policy towards Taiwan, the call is likely to infuriate Beijing which regards the island as a renegade province.”
But in geopolitics, nothing is seen as by chance, as the Financial Times report further says, quoting Evan Medeiros, former Asia Director, White House National Security Council that ‘the Chinese leadership will see this as a highly provocative action, of historic proportions’.
According to a report in the New York Times, the White House was informed about the call only after it had happened. The report further says, quoting an Obama administration official that in past China had reacted bitterly on US arms sales to Taiwan.
Let us wait and see how China reacts this time.
©SantoshChaubey
