Trump's Taiwan call was long planned, say insiders who were involved

Donald Trump's protocol-breaking telephone call with Taiwan's leader was an intentionally provocative move that establishes the incoming President as a break with the past, according to interviews with people involved in the planning.

The historic communication - the first between leaders of the United States and Taiwan since 1979 - was the product of months of quiet preparations and deliberations among Trump's advisers about a new strategy for engagement with Taiwan that began even before he became the GOP presidential nominee, according to people involved in or briefed on the talks.

The call also reflects the views of hardline advisers urging Trump to take a tough opening line with China, said others familiar with the months of discussion about Taiwan and China.

Trump and his advisers have sought to publicly portray the call the President-elect took from Taiwan President Tsai Ing Wen on Saturday as a routine congratulatory call. Trump noted on Twitter that she placed the call.

"He took the call, accepted her congratulations and good wishes and it was precisely that," Vice-President-elect Mike Pence said on ABC's This Week.

That glosses over the extensive and turbulent history of US relations with Taiwan and the political importance the island and its democratic traditions hold for many Republican foreign policy specialists.

Some critics portrayed the move as the thoughtless blundering of a foreign policy novice, but other experts said it appeared calculated to signal a new, robust approach to relations with China.

China reacted sternly to the Taiwan call, suggesting that it shows Trump's inexperience.

Trump sent a pair of Twitter messages yesterday that echoed his campaign-stump blasts against China.

"Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the US doesn't tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don't think so!" The US does impose a tax on Chinese goods - 2.9 per cent for non-farm goods and 2.5 per cent for agricultural products.

Some of the Republican Party's most ardent Taiwan proponents are playing active roles in Trump's transition team, and others in the conservative foreign policy community see a historic opportunity to reset relations with Taiwan and reposition it as a more strategic ally in East Asia.

Several leading members of Trump's transition team are considered hawkish on China and friendly toward Taiwan, including incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus.

Indeed, advisers explicitly warned last month that relations with China were in for a shake-up.

Saturday's phonecall was planned weeks ahead by staffers and Taiwan specialists on both sides, according to people familiar with the plans.

Immediately after Trump won the November 8 election, his staff compiled a list of foreign leaders with whom to arrange calls.

The relations between US and China were in for a shake-up. Photo / AP

"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 President-elect 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".