Posted on 04/21/2017 10:07:58 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In fairness to Trump, he heard that directly from China’s president (or so he says). What was he supposed to do, be skeptical of Chinese nationalist propaganda?
If you can’t trust Xi Jinping to shoot straight with you about a western-allied country within China’s sphere of influence, who can you trust?
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal last week, Trump said Xi told him during a recent summit that Korea actually used to be a part of China. The comments sparked outrage in Seoul and became an issue in South Koreas presidential race, prompting the foreign ministry to seek to verify what Xi actually said.
Its a clear fact acknowledged by the international community that, for thousands of years in history, Korea has never been part of China, foreign ministry spokesman Cho June-hyuck said at a briefing in Seoul on Thursday…
This is clearly a distortion of history and an invasion of the Republic of Koreas sovereignty,” conservative Liberty Korea Party candidate Hong Joon-pyo said through a spokesman.
Politically, that’s a bit like idly observing that Crimea contains a lot of ethnic Russians. An alarming possibility, though: Maybe Xi didn’t say that to him. Maybe Trump simply misunderstood, and now, because he seems not to realize which details he should and shouldn’t share publicly about his discussions with China’s leader, South Korea’s leadership is left to wonder erroneously whether Beijing is planning to include them in its “one China” plans a few decades from now. More from the Telegraph:
“I suspect that Mr Xi said, in effect, that Korea was part of China because it was overwhelmingly under Chinese influence historically and Mr Trump bought that,” said Rah Jong-yil, a former South Korean ambassador to both London and Tokyo.
“It shows his shocking ignorance of the situation in north-east Asia,” he told The Telegraph. “That is very disturbing to us”…
There is a growing body of nationalist thought in China that ancient Korean kingdoms were part of the Chinese empire and that modern-day nation states should similarly fall within Beijing’s exclusive sphere of influence, Mr Rah said.
If the South Koreans had any sort of troll game at all, they would have responded by claiming that Mexico’s president recently reminded them that the U.S. used to be part of Mexico. That would have been an amusing phone call between Trump and Pena Nieto.
As a Twitter pal said, what would make this even more darkly funny is if Trump started reminding everyone that China used to be a part of Japan. Does he really have no sense of the nationalist sensitivities in the region or how nervous U.S. allies there are about China’s growing power, especially after the White House ditched TPP? His tough talk towards China as a candidate might have reassured them but it’s been nothing but sunshine with Beijing since that phone call with Taiwan’s president. What looked like a looming “U.S. and Russia isolate China” long-term play by the White House during the transition increasingly looks more like a “U.S. and China isolate Russia” strategy. (Neither is likely to work, but still.) Imagine watching that play out in Tokyo or Seoul and suddenly finding Trump repeating Chinese talking points about the Korean peninsula.
Ah well. So long as he has an “armada” in the vicinity to help protect South Korea from the menace to the north, they’ll forgive him. Once they’re done forgiving him for BSing them about that armada, that is.
South Korea dismisses #Trump's remark that Korea was "part of China." pic.twitter.com/DtHa4gOSHe
— Jeffrey Guterman (@JeffreyGuterman) April 20, 2017
History and geography are not his strong suits.
History 101:
Every piece of territory “used to belong to someone else”.
Uhm.. yes it did.. :p
Every place used to be part of someplace else..................
GMTA!.............
Has anyone ever seen Allahpundit and Erick Erickson in the same room?
I’m pretty knowledgeable and I have no idea whether Korea was ever part of China’s empire. If I had studied Korean history, I would know, but it’s not something that even students of history and foreign affairs know off hand. Who cares if he got it wrong?
Hot Air??? Another propaganda news site!!!
Well written article detailing day by day news this week pointing out fake news/disinformation re: PDJT
https://heatst.com/politics/medias-spectacular-trainwreck-of-a-week/
by Stephen Miller...
Foolish. Right or wrong for any time. To nip at the hand that protects you is very petulant and quixotic indeed. I didn’t lose anything there, frankly.
And Obama spoke of 57 states.
Xi is more right than wrong.
He, or Trump, are both absolutely correct.
Korea was either directly ruled or a self-governing client-state to China, owing obeisance and tribute, over most of its history pre-1895, going back to its conquest (108 BC) during the reign of the Wu Emperor (Han dynasty).
This is, understandably, a delicate issue to Koreans. They have enormous chips on their shoulders vs both China and Japan.
Yes it was.
Both under direct rule and, more usually, as a tributary or client-state, making formal obeisance and paying tribute.
The American standard is: government is legitimate when it is based on the consent of the governed.
The NON-American standard is: we have some reason why we own you.
“R-S-P-E-C-T.” (trying to quote franklin’s song)
“And finally, Bos, I just want to say thank you for Youkilis.” (after boston traded him to Chicago)
“Even though most people agree... I’m presenting a fair deal, the fact that they don’t take it means that I should somehow do a Jedi mind-meld with these folks and convince them to do what’s right.” (mixing up star trek and star wars)
“When I meet with world leaders, what’s striking — whether it’s in Europe or here in Asia...” (As he spoke to Hawaiians)
“We’re the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad.”
“We’re not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that’s fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or providing good service. We don’t want people to stop, ah, fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow our economy.”
“One such translator was an American of Haitian descent, representative of the extraordinary work that our men and women in uniform do all around the world — Navy Corpse-Man Christian Brossard.” he pronounced the ps in “Corpsman”
“The Cambridge police acted stupidly.”
“The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings and inefficiencies to our health care system.” (At least he spoke the truth for once)
“It was also interesting to see that political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate. There’s a lot of — I don’t know what the term is in Austrian, wheeling and dealing.” (While speaking to Germans- Imagine if President Bush had said any of these things?)
“No, no. I have been practicing...I bowled a 129. It’s like — it was like Special Olympics, or something.”
“I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” (Tipping his hand to Joe the plumber- Imagine the outrage by the press if President Bush said he was going to redistribute everyone’s hard earned money?)
“What I was suggesting — you’re absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith...”
“I’m here with the Girardo family here in St. Louis.” (Speaking via satellite while in Kansas)
“Let me introduce to you the next President — the next Vice President of the United States of America, Joe Biden.”
“Just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee — which is my committee — a bill to call for divestment from Iran as way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don’t obtain a nuclear weapon.” (A committee he is NOT on)
“Let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. It will be a strong friend of Israel’s under a McCain...administration. It will be a strong friend of Israel’s under an Obama administration. So that policy is not going to change.” (uh huh)
“On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today — our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.”
“I’ve now been in 57 states — I think one left to go.”
“Why can’t I just eat my waffle?”
“It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
“The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn’t. But she is a typical white person, who, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know, you know, there’s a reaction that’s been bred in our experiences that don’t go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way, and that’s just the nature of race in our society.”
“Come on! I just answered, like, eight questions.” (That’s fine Mr President, you can take the next 7 years off then- we don’t want to overwork you)
“In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed.” (12 people died)
Going back to about 600ad and this incident in Korea:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Salsu
300,000 dead Chinese would disagree about Korea being part of China.
Koreans for most of their history used Chinese as their official written language. And even now many Koreans make the claim that they are true legacy of the ancient Chinese civilization that the people in China have lost.
Actually 60, for what it’s worth. He said he’d been to 57 with one left because Mooch said she wasn’t allowed to go to Alaska and Hawaii. Again, for what it’s worth.
If Trump said the Chinese president told him that, he’s covered.
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