Globe Trot: One-China policy stands

CHINA: In a conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping, U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States would honor the “One China” policy, ending hints at a reversal of the longstanding U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan. In December, Trump spoke to Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, and suggested the policy may be up for review.

UNITED STATES: Oral arguments before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals—which yesterday upheld unanimously a freeze on Trump’s immigration and refugee order—were a bracing reminder of the high cost of chaos. David French at National Review writes:

“The Trump administration has taken an extraordinarily strong legal case, backed by statutory law that gives the president the power to suspend or restrict the entry of ‘any aliens or of any class of aliens’ when he finds that their entry would be ‘detrimental to the interests of the United States,’ and turned it into a legal dumpster fire.”

YEMEN: Stop blaming Trump, says David Exum, an Obama Department of Defense official, for the collateral damage of the counterterrorism operation he ordered that left one Navy SEAL and a number of civilians dead:

“My experience as a senior Department of Defense official in the last two years of the Obama administration leads me to the conclusion that the way we did things … was slow and ponderous in a way that created real opportunity costs and denied subordinate commanders the flexibility to exploit opportunities they saw on the battlefield. Yes, it eliminated a lot of physical and political risk, but in doing so it negated one of the primary advantages the U.S. military enjoys, which is a highly trained and capable officer corps in the field that can exercise independent judgment.”

TURKEY: The Evangelical Presbyterian Church has launched a formal campaign to bring top-level attention to the ongoing imprisonment of Pastor Andrew Brunson. A White House petition must reach 100,000 signatures by March 6, while key congressional leaders have agreed to send an open letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Brunson’s behalf.

My recent WORLD Magazine cover story reported on Brunson and others caught in Turkey’s clamp.

IRAQ: Lawmaker Vian Dakhil made it to Washington to accept the Lantos Prize for her work on behalf of Yazidis, calling for more U.S. help to fight ISIS and criticizing the recent immigration order by Trump: “Now, by this decision, we were equalized with the terrorists.”

I found potent signs of life beginning again in areas liberated by ISIS, but almost unbelievable destruction, and concern over who will control these areas (see the photo above of one of more than 40 churches destroyed by ISIS in Mosul). A complete report from me to come.

NO GLOBE TROT on Monday.