Donald Trump has alarmed the Republican foreign policy establishment on a range of issues, from his call for friendlier relations with Russia to his hands-off view of the Middle East.
But when it comes to taking a harder line on China, Trump is preaching to the conservative choir.
Asia experts in both parties say that Trump’s tough-on-China stance—including his precedent-breaking phone call with Taiwan’s president on Friday—dovetails with a boiling conservative desire to reframe the U.S.-China strategic relationship after eight years of Democratic rule.
While Trump’s early overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin have drawn warning shots from senior Republicans like Senator John McCain, most national security conservatives cheered Trump’s Taiwanese call, and support his broader call for a more confrontational approach to China.
China “is an area where Trump is in line with GOP thinking, and I would argue mainstream thinking,” said one Senate foreign policy aide, talking on background because he is not a designated spokesman for his boss.
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