Trump could save Taiwan, but he needs a history lesson first

On Dec. 7, 1941, Imperial Japan dramatically expanded World War II in the Pacific — and not only by attacking U.S. forces in Pearl Harbor. That same day, it opened its Southeast Asia campaign by launching planes against the Philippines from the island then known as Formosa. 

For the duration of the conflict, Taiwan, which Gen. Douglas MacArthur called the “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” served as the logistical and transit point for Japan’s aggressive operations throughout the region. 

With its surrender to end World War II, Japan renounced its claim to Taiwan, which it had occupied since the Sino-Japan war in 1895. Several post-war international agreements addressed Taiwan and either were silent on its future status or explicitly declared (the official position of the U.S.) that it remained to be determined.

In January 1950, the U.S. carried its neutral posture toward Taiwan and South Korea to the point of not including either country within the Asia-Pacific security perimeter announced by the Truman administration. That turned out to be a historically fatal strategic decision. The Soviet Union, its communist Chinese ally and North Korean proxy coveted Taiwan and South Korea, respectively.  

Joseph Stalin interpreted the U.S. position as an effective green light and gave the go-ahead to Kim Il Sung — Kim Jong Un’s grandfather and the first of the Kim family dictators — to invade South Korea across the 38th Parallel. Washington immediately reversed its hands-off approach, entered the Korean War, and deployed the Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait to keep Taiwan’s anti-communist dictator, Chiang Kai-shek, and communist tyrant Mao Zedong from starting a new war.

The next episode in the saga of China’s siege against........

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