Final Word from Tuesday, December 6, 2016



Daniel Herman and Donald Trump make unexpected virtual bedfellows. They both violated the unwritten terms of the one-China policy and both succeeded in angering Beijing, but they did it from opposite ends of the political spectrum. Trump has apparently never said a critical word about human rights in China, and he is an "unknown entity as far as Tibet is concerned." By taking the call from Taiwan's president, he was tipping his hat to hardliners in the Republican Party. John R. Bolton, for example, wrote in Jan. about "modifying or even jettisoning the ambiguous one-China mantra" and playing the "Taiwan card" as a way to get Beijing to reverse its "territorial acquisitiveness" in the South China Sea. From this standpoint, Trump was using Taiwan to achieve military objectives. Herman sees himself as the next Václav Havel and used the Dalai Lama to further this agenda. As the Czechs like to say, when two people do the same thing, it's not the same. [Czech Republic KDU-ČSL]

Glossary of difficult words

bromance - a close but non-sexual relationship between two men;

bedfellow - a person or thing allied or closely connected with another; a person who shares a bed with another;

tipping one's hat - a way to show respect, respect, gratitude or acknowledgement;

hardliner - a member of a group, typically a political group, who adheres uncompromisingly to a set of ideas or policies;

to jettison - to abandon or discard (someone or something that is no longer wanted); to throw or drop something from an aircraft or ship;

mantra - a statement or slogan repeated frequently;

acquisitiveness - an excessive interest in acquiring money or material things (land, in this case).

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