Biden said the U.S. would protect Taiwan. But it’s not that clear-cut
American presidents have spent decades trying to sidestep the question of how forcefully the United States would come to the aid of Taiwan if China invaded it or, more likely, tried to slowly strangle the island in an effort to force it back under the control of the mainland.
The American policy — called “strategic ambiguity” because it leaves vague exactly how the United States would react — does not lend itself to a tough-sounding response. So the White House was quick to declare that American policy had not changed after President Biden was asked at a CNN town hall event on Thursday night whether the United States would protect Taiwan and he said, “Yes, we have a commitment to do that.”
“The president was not announcing any change in our policy and there is no change in our policy,” a White House statement read.
On Friday, both the defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, and the State Department spokesman, Ned Price, repeated in detail longstanding language intended to signal to Beijing that it should do nothing to change the status quo, and to Taipei that it should not think about relying on the United States if it considered declaring independence.
Mr. Biden’s wording was a reminder of what a minefield Taiwan remains for the United States, 42 years after the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act and amid a major buildup of Chinese military forces in the region. And once a strategy of ambiguity is described in less-than-ambiguous terms, as he seemed to do on Thursday, it is hard to walk it back. [Continue reading…]