CNN has a surprisingly even handed report China: No negotiation on ‘One China’ policy despite Trump remarks as long as you don’t read too much in the headline.

China’s Foreign Ministry firmly pushed back Saturday against President-elect Donald Trump’s suggestion that the “One China” policy on Taiwan is negotiable, calling it the “political foundation” of the relationship between the US and China.

China views Taiwan as a renegade province and, since 1979, the US has acknowledged Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is part of China, with US-China relations governed by a set of protocols known as the “One China” policy.

I am sure that unlike President Obama’s poor negotiation skills on either side of an argument, that Donald Trump realizes that calling something non-negotiable is a standard negotiating ploy. Part of the negotiations will be to try to get China to negotiate this point.

I am loath for our country to make a decision on the future of Taiwan without giving the people of Taiwan a say on the agreement. China may be “right” in how they view Taiwan, but the fact remains that the people may like the life they have established for themselves in Taiwan over the last 60 years. What right do we have to decide for them how they should live in the future? This is especially true now that the Government of mainland China and the government on Taiwan have made contact with each other. They can negotiate the outcome between the two of them.

China has the perfect right to explain to us what their concerns over Taiwan are. We have a perfect right to explain to them what our concerns are. We should understand this is part of negotiating. Neither side should be forced into making an agreement that they do not want to accept. Saber rattling from either side should not sway the negotiations in any direction. Each side needs to make that clear to the other side.

I suppose in a negotiation each side could come to the understanding that you can rattle your saber, and we will rattle ours back, but in the end we will have a peaceful negotiation.

I wonder if this is too much for the corporate media, the oligarchs, and eventually the citizens of our country to understand.