Trump's reckless Greenland comments no joke to Taiwan
By Thomas L. Friedman / The New York Times
Late-night comedians have had a field day with Donald Trump’s musings about his administration possibly seizing Greenland and the Panama Canal. Hahahahahaha! That Trump — such a funny guy — you never know what will come out of his mouth next. Pay no attention. You know him, he’ll just say something else outrageous tomorrow!
Well, I’ll tell you who I am certain is paying attention: President Xi Jinping of China. If the U.S. president can decide that he wants to seize Greenland and explicitly refuses to rule out the use of force to do so, that is like a giant permission slip for China to seize Taiwan, which has strong emotional, historical, linguistic and national connections to mainland China.
It took only a few days after Trump’s remarks for this joke to start circulating among China specialists:
Question: “What does Xi Jinping feel when Trump starts talking about taking Greenland and the Panama Canal?”
Answer: “Hungry” — for Taiwan.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/friedman-trumps-reckless-greenland-comments-no-joke-to-taiwan/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Taiwanese volunteer Tseng Sheng-guang died while fighting in Ukraine's Foreign Legion. (Credit: Getty Images)
The importance of diplomatic and political signals:
The US invaded Panama in Dec 1989 to remove General Manuel Noriega.
This invasion by a powerful ally who had heavily armed and financed his country was watched with keen fascination by a certain Middle Eastern dictator.
Saddam Hussein meets Special Envoy Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad on 20 Dec 1983 during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
This despot too had an economic dispute with a smaller neighbor, accusing them of siphoning off oil under a shared underground well.
US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie meets with Saddam Hussein.
The American ambassador declared to her Iraqi interlocutor that Washington, "inspired by friendship and not by confrontation, does not have an opinion" on the disagreement between Kuwait and Iraq, stating "we have no opinion on the Arab–Arab conflicts"
2 Aug 1990:
Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63678601
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2024/11/04/2003826355
https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/history/show/67519