Trump on Taiwan Channels Reagan

With a phone call Friday, Donald Trump fired what might be called the “shot-across-the-bow heard ’round the world.” The President-elect had a call with Taiwan’s president, the first such contact since 1979 when Jimmy Carter appeased Communist China by cutting off formal relations with the island it covets.

Heads have been exploding ever since, particularly among the political and media elites.  Predictably, the thugs in Beijing have complained bitterly, encouraging the narrative that an inexperienced Trump could blunder needlessly into a conflict with the Chinese.

I remember vividly similar hysterics when another transformative figure, President Ronald Reagan, in 1983 declared that he’d explore the option of defending America against missile attack.  The Reagan initiative helped defeat the Soviet Union without firing a shot. Trump’s may just set the stage for similarly undoing another dangerous Communist regime in China.