Thursday, February 28, 2019
Nixon went to China...
Trump, like Nixon, might be hastening one of the most astonishing transformations of recent times. The effects of Nixon's unprecedented 1972 weren't immediate, but fast. The opening of previously entirely-closed-to-contact-with-the-West communist China resulted in China's transition to a market economy beginning in 1978, and -- in terms of sheer numbers -- the greatest lifting of human beings out of abject poverty in history. It is very possible that Trump's Viet Nam summit with Kim Jong-un could do the same.
Trump left without an agreement, and leftists are mocking this as a failure. But as I commented on Victory Girls, the critics are imbecilic. WaPo, for example, mocked Trump for claiming to be a great negotiator but failing to come away with a deal. How strange. One succeeds in a negotiation by driving a hard bargain and being willing to walk away. Go into a car dealer ship convinced you must leave with a car, and the dealer has you; in a negotiation, you must be willing to say "no deal" walk away empty handed (hence not empty pocketbook) or you will be devoured.
Barack Obama showed us where the “get a deal at any cost” approach leads — so desperate to get a deal, any deal, with the Iranian dictatorship he surrendered hundreds of billions of dollars to them they used for funding terrorism and offensive wars, and in return received a poorly monitored nuclear semi-ban that expires in ten years. That’s what not being willing to walk away from the table gets you.
So first of all, if Trump wishes to drive a hard bargain and win denuclearization, he must walk away. Good. But there's another factor at least as important. Trump pointed out that "communist" Viet Nam is now thriving economically, having gone through something similar to P.R. China. He has told Kim "this is what you could be." This is what happened when China began to open to the rest of the world because of Nixon's visit; they saw that Chinese societies could thrive, while China itself was desperately poor... but other Chinese societies thrived because they had a very different economic system. Steven Cheung explains in his 1986 "Will China go Capitalist?" (Amazon advertises this at a whopping 869.56 USD. I'll sell you a paper version for 10 USD, but with a little search effort you can find in online for free.)
Trump tweeted “Vietnam is thriving like few places on earth. North Korea would be the same, and very quickly, if it would denuclearize. The potential is AWESOME, a great opportunity, like almost none other in history, for my friend Kim Jong Un. We will know fairly soon – Very Interesting!”
Trump turned around and left...Kim with nothing...except a vision of what could be if he comes around. The ball is in Kim's court.
