This is chilling-non Trump related

[DemocratSinceBirth]

With the island-building and the militarization of the islands [in the South China Sea], I got excoriated during my confirmation hearings when I said we may need to put a blockade in to stop China from militarizing them. I got ripped up from all kinds of people for being a warmonger, but I had been watching those islands being built from my role at ExxonMobil for years, where the Chinese in the South China Sea sent out gunboats to our rigs and against our seismic crews. And I just think that is where it is headed. I think it’s Xi’s plan to raise the stakes so significantly to U.S. military losses that the American people will say, “Wait a minute, we’re going to incur thousands of casualties to save Taiwan. Why would we do that?” And then China will get it de facto, or we’ll have a really ugly war in the Pacific. So I think they’ve got to deal with China’s military ambitions.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/11/rex-tillerson-interview-trump/

This is a dilemma. Taiwan should get to decide its own future. OTOH military conflict with China is unfathomable.

[soryang]

1. This is the most telling sentence in a very limited interview

"I got ripped up from all kinds of people for being a warmonger, but I had been watching those islands being built from my role at ExxonMobil for years, where the Chinese in the South China Sea sent out gunboats to our rigs and against our seismic crews."

This really is what Wall Street wants:

To Defeat China in War, Strangle its Economy: Expert: Forbes August 24, 2020, by David Axe “Editors Pick"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2020/08/24/to-defeat-china-in-war-strangle-its-economy/#677bda7131a9

The issue of whether China has any legitimate claim to exclusive economic zones in the EEZ, is never really addressed fairly in the west. It's ironic that China is accused of exacerbating the tension with Taiwan when it's the Trump administration that has done so with the encouragement of Japan, which has a similar EEZ dispute with China in the East China Sea. Chinese strategists argue that it is Japan which has encouraged the US to confront China in the South China Sea to broaden the dispute. Japan was behind the so called "arbitration" by the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea which dismissed China's claim to an EEZ in the Spratley Island's based upon the absurd finding that Taiping Island was not an "island." China never submitted to the "arbitration" and neither did Taiwan. The UNCLOS doesn't apply to disputes preexisting its creation.