14 December 2016

News Story: Trump puts Chinese ties at risk while wooing Russia

By Dave Clark

With a few apparently off-the-cuff comments, US President-elect Donald Trump has threatened Washington's cautious understanding with China while touting an unlikely new detente with Russia.

The United States and China, the world's two greatest economies and rivals for the leadership role in the Pacific, are often at loggerheads over trade, human rights and regional disputes.

But President Barack Obama has extended a hand to China's Xi Jinping and worked with Beijing on the global climate change accord and on measures against North Korea's rogue regime.

On Monday, businesswoman turned defeated presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina left Trump's New York office and said they had discussed Trump's opportunity to "reset" US foreign relations.

As part of this, Fiorina told reporters, she and Trump "spent a fair amount of time talking about China as probably our most important adversary and a rising adversary."

Never has current US leader Obama called into question the "One China" doctrine, which accepts that currently self-administered Taiwan is part of one state one day to be united under Beijing.

Trump may have recently taken advice from Henry Kissinger, architect of late president Richard Nixon's US-China breakthrough, but he has broken with this four-decade consensus.

Read the full story at SpaceDaily