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Carter's decision to recognize the mainland at the expense of Taiwan seems more and more like it's one of the most consequential unilateral decisions ever made

Carter's decision to recognize the mainland at the expense of Taiwan seems more and more like it's one of the most consequential unilateral decisions ever made (as in single person, not single nation). It's hard to know "what could have been," but what aspect of current life/ society/ the world wouldn't be significantly different today?

nabla9 6y ago
Nixon deserves the praise and blame for China relations. Starting the process was really hard part. It was culmination of long process started by Nixon in 1972. Shanghai Communique pledged to work toward the full diplomatic relations. Ford and Carter followed trough the process. Taiwan really didn't matter during the Cold War. Relations with China was strategic move to help create distance between Soviet Union and China.
- mc32 6y ago
  They both share the blame. One enabled it and the other one did it. It was probably Kissinger with rosy “divide and conquer” thinking given Moscow & Beijing had a fall out.
- beerandt 6y ago
  I'm over here trying to have a fun, hypothetical mind-game with arbitrary & made-up rules, and you've got to go and ruin it with "it's complicated" realities. :-) But of course, you're correct. And Carter (and Nixon and Ford) obviously didn't have the foresight to realize the ultimate impact of the process/decision. Yet they would have been aware it was a major, influential policy decision. Does "starting the process" count as an ultimately-weighty-political-decision? Along the lines of "Deciding to drop the bomb on Hiroshima," if you want to count that as a decision by one person. Of course it was also just one node of a decision tree that was a long, complicated chain-of-events.
- yyyk 6y ago
  I don't think blaming Nixon is right. His action arguably made sense at the time, and didn't require sacrificing Taiwan. The US had plenty of time to safely pivot to a different position regarding China/Taiwan (e.g. letting Taiwan get nukes in the 70s-80s; Shifting diplomatic position and recognizing Taiwan right after the Cold War was over; Not allowing Globalization to go so far in the 90s-00s). If the US didn't take that option, one can blame successor presidents rather than Nixon.
  - blackrock 6y ago
    > letting Taiwan get nukes in the 70s-80s Giving Taiwan nukes would’ve been a casus belli situation. This would’ve caused China to invade. Damned be the consequences or cost of lives. The same is true today. If America arms Taiwan with too many advanced weapons, then it will also trigger a casus belli event on China’s part. If America couldn’t beat China in North Korea in 1950, when the Chinese were literally fighting with bows and arrows, and America had air power and carpet bombing, then do you really think America can beat China in 2021? Or 2030? Or 2050?
    - yyyk 6y ago
      >Giving Taiwan nukes would’ve been a casus belli situation. This would’ve caused China to invade. Damned be the consequences or cost of lives. At that time, the PLA was in a poor state. China simply did not have the ability to invade Taiwan or even get air superiority. They'd have lost, badly, so long as the US kept supporting Taiwan, quite likely the US wouldn't have had to even get involved directly. That's a consequence the CCP can't afford, they'd have had to get used to nukes. Of course, now the balance has changed and that's not practical. E: You're assuming China always gets stronger over time. Recently that's true, but at the time China was picking itself up from the Cultural Revolution, while the US was rearming after Vietnam. US had a far bigger advantage in 1975-1985 over China than in 1950. This scenario would have also required the PLA to make an air or amphibious assault without (at the time) sufficient airplanes or boats, while 1950 was just a land assault.
    - jeffdn 6y ago
      That’s a pretty disingenuous way to put it — first of all, there were plenty of Soviet fighter aircraft during the Korean War, and the Chinese were not literally arming the bulk of their troops with bows and arrows. Additionally, Korea shares a land border with China, and transport and logistics (such as they were) were thereby greatly simplified. A war with Taiwan is a completely different story.
UncleOxidant 6y ago
Nixon was the one who started that process.
jonathannat 6y ago
What could have been: If Nixon hadn't started the process, if carter hadn't recognize the communist government of China. - Offshoring/globalization may not have been the boom it is today, due to the lack of a major source of cheap/obedient labor force. In the 70s offshoring occured in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and others SE Asia countries but they didn't have enough cheap labors to continue. American companies would have been timid to shift operations to Indonesia and India when they lacked severe infrastructure, with no totalitarian government to enforce cheap labor. - As a corollary, GE/Intel would not not have shed all its capabilities to Asia, and be greatly diminished today. - Wall street might not have been able to push companies to greatly shed cost and ship capabilities overseas due to national security issues. As a result, US unions would have been intact somewhat and the jobs would not have been shipped to China. Flyover states would have enjoyed greater strength as they did in the 60s and 70s. - the great crash of 2008 would not have happened (Chinese entry into WTO greatly reduced manual jobs in US and Europe, crashing both economies) - Trump would not have been elected. Trump was a reaction to much jobs lost and much sufferings in flyover states caused by China. - Coronavirus spread around the world and all the deaths that occurred may not have happened (China would have been still a closed off country, not unlike what Xi Jing Ping is trying to do today). No mass flights out of Wuhan or Beijing.
- ojbyrne 6y ago
  This seems like cherry-picking. Creating a narrative where some recent events are dependent on a political event from the seventies seems suspect. Just to pick a specific example, the US has had depressions/recessions almost from inception, most of which make 2008 look mild. Also you left out that in your alternative narrative you would probably be typing on a larger, slower and heavier phone (or laptop).
- blackrock 6y ago
  In your fictional view, you are giving America way too much credit. The Chinese would’ve come online, sooner or later. The WTO sped up the process of course, but China’s technological ascendancy was inevitable. The other theory is that if China was denied entry into the WTO, then they would’ve just created their own international trading agreement. And in 2020, they did just that, and called it the RCEP. Besides, without China, then your iPhone would’ve probably never been created. Apple would’ve never made enough money from the iPod, to justify further investment into the iPhone. China and the iPhone, really are symbiotic. Instead, we might all be living in a Blackberry world.

nabla9 6y ago

Nixon deserves the praise and blame for China relations. Starting the process was really hard part. It was culmination of long process started by Nixon in 1972. Shanghai Communique pledged to work toward the full diplomatic relations. Ford and Carter followed trough the process. Taiwan really didn't matter during the Cold War. Relations with China was strategic move to help create distance between Soviet Union and China.

mc32 6y ago
They both share the blame. One enabled it and the other one did it. It was probably Kissinger with rosy “divide and conquer” thinking given Moscow & Beijing had a fall out.
beerandt 6y ago
I'm over here trying to have a fun, hypothetical mind-game with arbitrary & made-up rules, and you've got to go and ruin it with "it's complicated" realities. :-) But of course, you're correct. And Carter (and Nixon and Ford) obviously didn't have the foresight to realize the ultimate impact of the process/decision. Yet they would have been aware it was a major, influential policy decision. Does "starting the process" count as an ultimately-weighty-political-decision? Along the lines of "Deciding to drop the bomb on Hiroshima," if you want to count that as a decision by one person. Of course it was also just one node of a decision tree that was a long, complicated chain-of-events.
yyyk 6y ago
I don't think blaming Nixon is right. His action arguably made sense at the time, and didn't require sacrificing Taiwan. The US had plenty of time to safely pivot to a different position regarding China/Taiwan (e.g. letting Taiwan get nukes in the 70s-80s; Shifting diplomatic position and recognizing Taiwan right after the Cold War was over; Not allowing Globalization to go so far in the 90s-00s). If the US didn't take that option, one can blame successor presidents rather than Nixon.
- blackrock 6y ago
  > letting Taiwan get nukes in the 70s-80s Giving Taiwan nukes would’ve been a casus belli situation. This would’ve caused China to invade. Damned be the consequences or cost of lives. The same is true today. If America arms Taiwan with too many advanced weapons, then it will also trigger a casus belli event on China’s part. If America couldn’t beat China in North Korea in 1950, when the Chinese were literally fighting with bows and arrows, and America had air power and carpet bombing, then do you really think America can beat China in 2021? Or 2030? Or 2050?
  - yyyk 6y ago
    >Giving Taiwan nukes would’ve been a casus belli situation. This would’ve caused China to invade. Damned be the consequences or cost of lives. At that time, the PLA was in a poor state. China simply did not have the ability to invade Taiwan or even get air superiority. They'd have lost, badly, so long as the US kept supporting Taiwan, quite likely the US wouldn't have had to even get involved directly. That's a consequence the CCP can't afford, they'd have had to get used to nukes. Of course, now the balance has changed and that's not practical. E: You're assuming China always gets stronger over time. Recently that's true, but at the time China was picking itself up from the Cultural Revolution, while the US was rearming after Vietnam. US had a far bigger advantage in 1975-1985 over China than in 1950. This scenario would have also required the PLA to make an air or amphibious assault without (at the time) sufficient airplanes or boats, while 1950 was just a land assault.
  - jeffdn 6y ago
    That’s a pretty disingenuous way to put it — first of all, there were plenty of Soviet fighter aircraft during the Korean War, and the Chinese were not literally arming the bulk of their troops with bows and arrows. Additionally, Korea shares a land border with China, and transport and logistics (such as they were) were thereby greatly simplified. A war with Taiwan is a completely different story.

UncleOxidant 6y ago

Nixon was the one who started that process.

jonathannat 6y ago

What could have been: If Nixon hadn't started the process, if carter hadn't recognize the communist government of China. - Offshoring/globalization may not have been the boom it is today, due to the lack of a major source of cheap/obedient labor force. In the 70s offshoring occured in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and others SE Asia countries but they didn't have enough cheap labors to continue. American companies would have been timid to shift operations to Indonesia and India when they lacked severe infrastructure, with no totalitarian government to enforce cheap labor. - As a corollary, GE/Intel would not not have shed all its capabilities to Asia, and be greatly diminished today. - Wall street might not have been able to push companies to greatly shed cost and ship capabilities overseas due to national security issues. As a result, US unions would have been intact somewhat and the jobs would not have been shipped to China. Flyover states would have enjoyed greater strength as they did in the 60s and 70s. - the great crash of 2008 would not have happened (Chinese entry into WTO greatly reduced manual jobs in US and Europe, crashing both economies) - Trump would not have been elected. Trump was a reaction to much jobs lost and much sufferings in flyover states caused by China. - Coronavirus spread around the world and all the deaths that occurred may not have happened (China would have been still a closed off country, not unlike what Xi Jing Ping is trying to do today). No mass flights out of Wuhan or Beijing.

ojbyrne 6y ago
This seems like cherry-picking. Creating a narrative where some recent events are dependent on a political event from the seventies seems suspect. Just to pick a specific example, the US has had depressions/recessions almost from inception, most of which make 2008 look mild. Also you left out that in your alternative narrative you would probably be typing on a larger, slower and heavier phone (or laptop).
blackrock 6y ago
In your fictional view, you are giving America way too much credit. The Chinese would’ve come online, sooner or later. The WTO sped up the process of course, but China’s technological ascendancy was inevitable. The other theory is that if China was denied entry into the WTO, then they would’ve just created their own international trading agreement. And in 2020, they did just that, and called it the RCEP. Besides, without China, then your iPhone would’ve probably never been created. Apple would’ve never made enough money from the iPod, to justify further investment into the iPhone. China and the iPhone, really are symbiotic. Instead, we might all be living in a Blackberry world.