Trump, China And A Long History Of Misunderstandings

choi

NPR, Dec 12, 2016 (rush transcript from the radio program "All Things Considered")
http://www.npr.org/2016/12/12/50 ... f-misunderstandings

Note:
(a) "They [Taiwanese] claim to be the government of China. That's pretty fictitious at this point. But if they went independent, that would blow the fiction out of the waters."
(i) blow sth/sb out of the water: "to destroy or defeat something or someone completely"
NPR, Dec 12, 2016 (rush transcript from the radio program "All Things Considered")
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ ... sb-out-of-the-water
(ii) What Does 'Blow out of the Water' Mean?  WiseGEEK, Nov 13, 2016 (date according to Google).
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-blow-out-of-the-water-mean.htm

the first two paragraphs:

" 'Blow out of the water' is an idiomatic expression that means to defeat an opponent overwhelmingly. The term isn't used to describe a narrow victory, it's used only to describe a victory of monumental proportions. Most commonly found in discussions of military engagements and sports contests, the term has its origins in naval warfare.

"In World War II, naval warfare and munitions reached the point where ships, particularly submarines, had such destructive weapons and delivery systems that when they hit a target, it would sometimes literally blow out of the water. The phrase appeared in battle reports and newspaper accounts, and soon came to symbolize overwhelming victory. The term was especially applicable to sports contests that ended in lopsided victories.

(b) "China a justification to squeeze Taiwan even more than it's already squeezing Taiwan. At the end of the day, I just worry that once again Taiwan's going to be thrown under the bus."

Under the Bus, to Throw. The Word Detective, Feb 12, 2008
http://www.word-detective.com/2008/02/under-the-bus-to-throw/
("The earliest solid example of 'throw under the bus' found in print so far is from 1991 * * * Incidentally, by far the best compilation of citations for the phrase can be found, as usual, at Grant Barrett's Double-Tongued Dictionary website (www.doubletongued.org) [which is locked behind paywall].  The exact origin of 'thrown under the bus' is, unfortunately, a mystery. * * * As someone who spent a lot of time standing on Manhattan street corners and narrowly avoided being expunged by speeding city buses on several occasions, to me the phrase conjures up the classic urban nightmare of being pushed in front of a bus. As a way to quickly and irreversibly get rid of someone, “throwing” them under a bus in this sense would be the ideal solution and would satisfy the connotations of sudden, cold brutality the phrase usually carries")
(c) "What is it that we typically just don't get [ie, understand] about the Chinese?"

(d) "We have often a powerfully emotive, romantic notion that we'll be able to form some type of unified sort of position on the world and then together solve the world's problems."
(i) emotive (adj): "appealing to or expressing emotion <the emotive use of language>"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emotive
(ii) emotive
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/emotive

Please read "Usage" underneath the definition.

(e) "More like us might have been Protestant like most Americans or might have been more Democratic, more open."

"More like us" has its subject "Chinese [are]" omitted.