Trump accuses his opponents of treason. But it’s clear who the real traitor is |
The visit by US president Donald Trump to Beijing for a summit with China’s president Xi Jinping ended in apparent failure and toe-curling abasement of the United States.
In an absurd riff, Trump suggested that this diplomatic fiasco was the “greatest summit ever”, of the type that observers had “never seen before”. In a sense he was right. His public obsequiousness to Xi and his empty claims about how the US and China enjoyed wonderful relations exposed Trump as a thoroughgoing charlatan.
Abject diplomatic failure might well be received with equanimity by those who cannot wait for Trump’s presidency to end. But the only significant Chinese democracy, Taiwan, must have held its collective breath.
The concern would have been that Trump, in pursuit of a favourable headline, might secretly have signalled to Beijing that the US would curtail Taiwan’s capacity to defend itself from invasion, or that America was less inclined in future to assist Taiwan defending its democracy. The fact is that Trump cannot be trusted by any ally.
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