Taiwan Confrontation - 2020-24 - Biden
US President Joe Biden suggested 23 May 2022 that his country will get involved militarily if China attacks Taiwan. Speaking with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida after their first summit on 23 May 2022, Biden said that the US would intervene militarily if the Chinese mainland takes the island of Taiwan by force. Asked if the US is willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan, Biden answered, "Yes." He said, "That's the commitment we've made." Biden was asked by a reporter how Washington would respond in the event of a contingency involving Taiwan. He responded: "Our policy toward Taiwan has not changed at all. We remain committed to supporting peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and ensuring that there is no unilateral change to the status quo."
By stating the US would intervene militarily if the Chinese mainland takes the island of Taiwan by force, the Biden administration is taking a step further to hollow out the one-China policy. Biden also said that deterring China from taking the island was one reason why Russia needs to "pay a dear price" for the conflict with Ukraine. He added that any effort by China to use force against Taiwan would make China "dislocate the entire region" and "be another action similar to what happened in Ukraine."
"That's the commitment we made," he said when asked if Washington would intervene militarily against a possible attempt by Beijing to take control of Taiwan. "We agreed with the One China policy, we signed on to it... but the idea that it can be taken by force is just not appropriate". Addressing the president's statement, White House officials later said that Biden simply meant the US would provide military equipment to Taiwan, not send troops to defend the island, which would be a landmark shift in policy. This is not the first time Biden has confirmed that the US would defend Taiwan if it was attacked: in October 2021 Biden was forced to walk back a claim that “we have a commitment” to defend Taiwan in the event of an attack by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Since 1979, the US has kept “strategic ambiguity” about whether it would intervene militarily to prevent the autonomous island from being ruled by Beijing.
“As the president said, our One China policy has not changed,'' US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters at the Pentagon on 23 May 2022. “He reiterated that policy and our commitment to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. He also highlighted our commitment under the Taiwan Relations Act to help provide Taiwan [with] the means to defend itself. So, again, our policy is not changed."
The US for years maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” under which it provides key military support to Taiwan, but did not explicitly promise to come to the island’s aid in the event of a Chinese attack. The US was in the process of constantly clarifying its one-China policy. Some Americans want the US to abandon the strategic ambiguity policy and replace it with "strategic clarity." In April 2001, then US president George W. Bush said the US would do "whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself" in the event of an attack by the Chinese mainland.
US President Joe Biden said 21 October 2021 that the US is committed to defending Taiwan if it is attacked. Biden said the US did not want a new Cold War but expressed concern about whether China was “going to engage in activities that will put them in a position where they may make a serious mistake." Biden was asked at a town hall event hosted by CNN whether the US would come to the defense of Taiwan, which China claims as its own. Biden said “I just want to make China understand that we are not going to step back, we are not going to change any of our views.” Asked whether the US would come to Taiwan's defense if it were attacked, he replied: “Yes, we have a commitment to do that”, in what appeared to be a break with a longstanding US policy on Taiwan.
"China, Russia, and the rest of the world knows we're the most powerful military in the history of the world," Biden said, as he jumped to the defense of the US' credentials. "What you do have to worry about is whether or not they're going to engage in activities that would put them in a position where they may make a serious mistake," Biden said. After the interview, a high-level official told the press that US policy toward Taiwan island had not changed.
While Washington is required by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, it had long followed a policy of "strategic ambiguity" on whether it would intervene militarily in the event of a Chinese attack. The White House later clarified there was no change in policy, reiterating a similar statement in August 2021. "The US defense relationship with Taiwan is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act," a White House spokesperson said. "The president was not announcing any change in our policy and there is no change in our policy."
Biden said 19 August 2021, when asked about US commitment to its allies in the Asia Pacific in the wake of the decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, Biden appeared to suggest the US would defend Taiwan if it came under attack from China. “They are … entities we’ve made agreements with based on not a civil war they’re having on that island or in South Korea, but on an agreement where they have a unity government that, in fact, is trying to keep bad guys from doing bad things to them,” he said. “We have made, kept every commitment. We made a sacred commitment to article 5 that if in fact anyone were to invade or take action against our NATO allies, we would respond. Same with Japan, same with South Korea, same with Taiwan.” The White House soon put out the fire, indicating that US policy on the Taiwan Straits had not changed. US academic circles and mainstream public opinion mostly believed that Biden' reply was "a slip of the tongue."
Steven M. Goldstein, director of the Taiwan Studies Workshop at Harvard University, believed that the administration’s recent remarks are not representative of a policy change – but that they do signal increasing toughness towards Beijing. “I think that Biden’s statement that the US would defend Taiwan, and certainly Blinken’s statement, are pushing the envelope as a signal to the Chinese – even as the Chinese are themselves pushing the envelope with these flights into Taiwan’s defence identification zone,” Goldstein said. “The US is getting close to the red line as a way of showing a toughening policy.”
“Strategic ambiguity remains … but the framework for how strategic ambiguity has been implemented is experiencing changes, because the context in which the three players are interacting with each other has substantially shifted,” said Dean P. Chen, associate professor of Political Science at Ramapo College of New Jersey and author of, “US Taiwan Strait Policy: The Origins of Strategic Ambiguity”. This shift in the framework for strategic ambiguity, said Chen, began with the Trump administration, which lifted rules forbidding senior-level contact between US and Taiwanese officials and increased arms sales to the island as well as ramped up US military activity in the surrounding area. Despite their differences, Biden has not strayed far from Trump’s Taiwan policy. “Officials from both administrations agree that Beijing is a disruptor of this relationship,” Chen said.
“The danger of the Taiwan issue is that it has become an uncompromisable, immoveable controversy, in which all the actors have to learn to persist in an unsatisfactory manner,” said Goldstein. “However, as sincere as I believe the Chinese are in saying that they will not allow Taiwan to be lost, I think the Chinese are equally conscious that a conflict would be a disaster for the Communist Party’s plans.”
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