US-Taiwan
It is time for the US to take the lead and influence President Xi and the CCP to act like adults and understand that peaceful trade is far more productive than a military takeover
By Anil Madan
President Biden’s remarksduring a joint news conference with Prime Minister Kishida in Japanabout whether the US would intervene militarily if China invaded Taiwan, have drawn the ire of the Chinese Communist Party and prompted much speculation about whether Biden’s statements were calculated or a gaffe by an aging politician.
To get some perspective, we might start with a transcript of Biden’s remarks at the press conference. (N.B. This is my transcription of what I heard on the video). The relevant portion:
Reporter: Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?
Biden:Yes.
Reporter: You are?
Biden: That’s the commitment we made. That’s the commitment we made… We agree with the One China policy… But the idea that it can be taken by force is just not appropriate. It would dislocate the entire region and be another actionsimilarto what happened in Ukraine, so it’s a burden that is even stronger.
This doesn’t sound to me like a gaffe. Rather, it seems more an attempt to rethink Biden’s mistaken equivocal responses about Ukraine. It seems to evince a desire not to repeat what could only have been a message to Russia that it would face no military opposition from NATO and the US if it invaded Ukraine.In fact, President Biden explicitly said as much when he equated a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and noted that the burden (on the US) is even stronger. In a previous comment, I explained my view that Biden blinked when it came to Ukraine and that his equivocating has brought us to where we are. Clearly, his comments in Tokyo were a forceful attempt to forestall a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Or at least an attempt to forestall Chinese adventurism along the lines of Putin’sUkraine invasion.
Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 27 May 2022
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