When Trump Hosts Xi, Taiwan Will be on the Menu

Thank you for a lovely dinner, the preparation was excellent – but for the future, please do note that spring rolls are actually not a Chinese delicacy.  I appreciate your keeping your team to a minimum for this meeting.  I have only a single agenda item to discuss with you and that is Taiwan.  I will not bore you with the history of this island, or the importance for my legacy to see it reunited with the People’s Republic.  I will simply set out two key principles and propose a practical program for their realization.  I think you will agree that it serves both our national interests.

First, we have decided to bring Taiwan home next year, in 2026.  We feel this is very much in that renegade province’s interest and is inevitable in any case.  Second, it is also very much in your country’s interest to support us, in the sense that it is impossible for you to defy us.

Please, Donald, don’t interrupt like Zelenskyy, it is disrespectful.  Why is it impossible to defy us?  Ask the generals you haven’t fired.  We have more naval vessels than you do and they don’t matter anyway.  We can sink your warships and aircraft carriers from our shores and, as the aggressor with so much at risk so far from home, you would not retaliate.  Nuclear war is unthinkable and I am confident we can sabotage your infrastructure more effectively than you can ours.  Your people complain a lot more than ours.  You have loud political opposition and real political risk; we do not.  Look, you have no treaty obligations to Taiwan, and transactionally, what have they ever done for you or the U.S.?

Oh, Donald, please.  Of course you have economic weapons, and I am well aware of our trade surplus with the U.S.  Will you forgo the lifesaving pharmaceuticals you depend on us for?  Will Europe?  Will Japan?  For Taiwan?  What will you do without your smartphones?  Cutting us off economically is an empty threat.

Let me outline the program I propose for our mutual benefit.  First let me say that I admire the winner’s position you have seized for yourself between Russia and Ukraine.  My friend Vladimir Putin gives you terms and you tell Ukraine what a hard bargain you drove on their behalf.  And you get half their mineral wealth in the bargain.  It took them a little while to accept the arrangement but what choice did they have?  To fight a losing war to the last Ukrainian while Russia sells petroleum to us and uses the money to rent North Korea’s army?  Think of me as your partner in humiliating Ukraine’s president, that insolent troublemaker.

Here is how we will play it.  We will build up our coastal military assets across from Taiwan with great stealth, but your all-seeing satellites will somehow detect our efforts.  You will declare a crisis, which we will deny, but you will be forceful in your special way.  Everyone you disappointed on Ukraine will cheer your apparent concern for Taiwan.  You will demand a meeting with me.  I will agree.  You will declare the U.N. irrelevant since we and our trading partner Russia sit on the Security Council.

You will broker a big beautiful deal without Taiwan’s involvement.  Then you will explain to Taiwan why it must accept the terms.  You will tell them that their military situation is hopeless, they hold no cards, U.S. assistance would risk World War III – you know the script.  You can point out that over many years they chose not to use their growing wealth to arm themselves with American weapons, instead spending the money domestically.  They should have put America first.

You can boast that your military and economic threats against China have yielded great concessions.  We will meet and after many hours of discussions – no spring rolls this time, please – we will agree to a gradual transition.  We will promise to respect Taiwan’s capitalist system and and freedoms for 50 years.  Just like we promised Hong Kong, and I know what you’re thinking, but who even remembers what we promised?  Anyway, you can say this time is different because you have intimidated us with your strength.  You might tell people our agreement over Hong Kong was with the “little U.K.,” not the all-powerful U.S. and its Iron Peacemaker.  I pledge to you that we will not violate Taiwan’s sovereignty until you leave office.  Why would we?  Chaos would undermine Taiwan’s success, which we want for our own.

I am sure you will agree to this mutually rewarding arrangement.  I am so sure that I brought a term sheet and a pen with me.  The term sheet includes some additional provisions to improve and clarify our relationship.  As you told Zelenskyy, you had better move fast or you are not going to have a Country left.