Options !

Two very different scenarios seem possible.   Either the President Elect is such an imbecilic Boofhead that he picked up the phone when it rang in Trump Tower - and found himself talking to Tsai Ing-Wen, the president of Taiwan.   She was simply making a president to president congratulatory call over his win in the recent election.

Those of an opposite political persuasion might see this as an act of a wise and far sighted president elect in delivering an inescapably clear message to Xi Jin ping, the ruling strongman holding the reigns in an increasingly aggressive China.

Diplomatic protocol demands that the rest of the world ignores Taiwan if they hope to maintain a cordial relationship with mainland China.   China regards Taiwan as a renegade province and has long promised reunification by force.   Prior to 1972 America promised to defend Taiwan if China invaded across the Taiwan strait, but a historic meeting between Richard Nixon and Mao had America withdraw its ambassador from Taipei and open an embassy in Beijing.

Over the intervening years Taiwan has been an enigma.  It is a prosperous little island that is armed to the teeth with American weapons.  While it is denied political recognition, it trades with the world and until recently it accepted the " One country, two systems " cover that applied to Hong Kong.  Now there are stirrings for independence - and Tsai Ing-Wen heads a political party with just that ambition.

The world survived many long years of the cold war between America and the Soviet Union simply because of MAD - standing for " Mutually Assured Destruction ".  It was recognised that a nuclear exchange would wipe out both countries - and so it never happened.

Nothing has really changed. Vladimir Putin's Russia is still armed with nuclear weapons and Chinese nukes threaten America, but an all out nuclear war between these main players seems a zero sum game.  Perhaps Trump was delivering a message that his presidency would be very different from the Obama terms.

Obama's presidency was concentrated within America and he seemed disinterested in world affairs. His lack of aggression in Syria convinced some that American power was declining, hence the Russian move on Ukraine and Chinese brinkmanship in the South China sea.   Perhaps Trump was seeking to close off the dangerous gap between his election and taking of office in January.

That could be seen as a policy vacuum.  An outgoing president would be reluctant to take decisive action and his replacement would lack the authority to step in should a world event materialize. The ever ambiguous Donald Trump threw a spanner into the machinations of other world leaders.   The lights will be burning in government offices worldwide - as they try to figure out just what message this protocol breach delivered.

Perhaps the most perplexed will be the American voters.  Never before has anyone ever won the oval office without clarity of purpose being clearly defined !