Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
“U.S. President Joe Biden said U.S forces would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion… Asked in a CBS 60 Minutes interview broadcast on Sunday whether U.S. forces would defend the democratically governed island claimed by China, he replied: ‘Yes, if in fact, there was an unprecedented attack.’…
“The United States has long stuck to a policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ and not making clear whether it would respond militarily to an attack on Taiwan. Asked to comment, a White House spokesperson said U.S. policy towards Taiwan had not changed.” Reuters
Both sides agree that Biden’s statements appear to reflect a change in US policy towards Taiwan:
“The president sets our foreign policy — not unnamed, unelected aides. And Biden has said, in no uncertain terms, that U.S. military forces will defend Taiwan if it is attacked. He has said it not once, not twice, not three times — but four times in the past year…
“The failure of Biden’s advisers to fall in line behind the commander in chief borders on insubordination. They keep telling him it’s not U.S. policy to defend Taiwan, and he keeps saying it is. Maybe they think he forgot? Or that he’s confused?… Biden won 306 electoral votes. His aides got zero. That means when he speaks definitively — four times — on a matter of U.S. policy, that is the new policy of our nation, and his advisers need to salute and carry out his orders.”
Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post
“The Chinese leadership are far more sophisticated readers of US politics than they once were. But these are the recent signals from Washington: Just last month, Nancy Pelosi became the first House speaker to visit Taiwan in 25 years. (China’s military mobilization in response showed its increasing capacity to strangle the island in a blockade). Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee advanced a $6.5 billion Taiwan military aid bill. Now Biden has reiterated his vow to defend Taiwan…
“It certainly looks like the US has moved from ambiguity to deterrence. And while war is hopefully a distant prospect, no one has prepared the American people for the possibility of defending a democracy many time zones away. Or for the extraordinary consequences a military showdown would have in terms of economic meltdowns, interrupted supply chains and semi-conductor imports. Not to mention the possible cost in American blood even from a limited maritime skirmish. A US clash with China would make the reverberations of the war in Ukraine look like a sideshow.”
Stephen Collinson, CNN
Other opinions below.
“The problem with Biden's remarks are not their moral substance. Indeed, in principle, the president deserves credit for taking a definitive stance… The problem is that Taiwan is not doing nearly enough to defend itself against the rapidly growing threat of Chinese invasion…
“Taiwan's defense spending remains ludicrously low in face of the existential threat it faces. This war, after all, would define whether Taiwan remains an independent democracy or just another subordinate province under the Chinese Communist Party hammer. Yet, even as Taipei stares down the vast size and capability of the PLA, it continues to spend less than 2% of its GDP on defense… unless and until Taiwan itself ramps up its readiness for war, it's hard to see how the U.S. can ride to the rescue.”
Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner
“The Ukraine war isn’t a fight between two great powers, but it is a case study in how hard it can be simply to keep fighting in high-intensity conflict: A free-world coalition led by a global superpower has struggled to meet the Kyiv government’s needs without dangerously depleting its own stockpiles. The US reportedly provided one-third of its overall stockpile of Javelin antitank missiles to Ukraine in the first, most desperate weeks of the fighting. It may take years for Washington and other countries to replenish their armories…
“The US could find itself in a terrible position after just a few months — even just a few weeks — of fighting [over Taiwan]. It might struggle to replace the precision-guided, long-range munitions that would be crucial to striking Chinese ships in the waters around Taiwan without having to venture into the teeth of China’s anti-ship missiles and air-defense systems… Yet President Joe Biden’s administration doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to increase the defense budget. Both of Biden’s budget requests so far have represented real-dollar decreases in Pentagon outlays.”
Hal Brands, Bloomberg
“Presidential pronouncements alone can only deter China so much… Mr. Biden’s improvisations, albeit repeated, are no substitute for a formal update to U.S. policy. That is what the Taiwan Policy Act, newly passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on a vote of 17-5, proposes. The most necessary provision is $6.5 billion in new security assistance over the next five years, along with language making it U.S. policy ‘to deter the use of force’ by China…
“The bill’s precise details are debatable, and its prospects for passage cloudy. Yet legislation reaffirming and modernizing the U.S. commitment to Taiwan should pass; Congress should provide Mr. Biden and his successors with a stronger set of legislative instructions that would enhance not only the clarity of what they say but also the authority with which they say it.”
Editorial Board, Washington Post
Others argue, “The rationale of the [Taiwan Policy Act] is to serve as ‘credible deterrence’ against China… But as former US Naval War College professor Lyle Goldstein told Jacobin last month, the bill could easily have the opposite effect, leading Chinese leadership to decide that invading now is its best option, since ever-intensifying US military support for the island may make delaying a potential invasion more costly for it…
“Even one of the ‘yes’ votes on the Senate committee, Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT), explicitly acknowledged this risk. ‘We’re doing something that’s highly provocative and bellicose,’ he said… “Needless to say, any decision by Beijing to attack Taiwan will constitute a choice on the part of the Chinese leadership, and that leadership will rightly bear responsibility for what follows. But US leaders will bear the full weight of responsibility for the consequences of their decision to engage in a series of ‘highly provocative and bellicose’ actions that pointlessly raise the likelihood of armed confrontation.”
Branko Marcetic, Jacobin
