Civic Register
| 5.23.22
President Biden Says U.S. Will Defend Taiwan if China Attacks, White House Issues Walk Back
Should the U.S. defend Taiwan if China attacks?
What’s the story?
- President Joe Biden said Monday that the U.S. military would intervene if China attempts to invade Taiwan, which is a self-governing democracy regarded by China as a rogue island province that must be united with the mainland under communist rule.
- While those comments appeared to be a departure from past U.S. policy regarding Taiwan’s status, the White House quickly issued a statement walking back the president’s statement. The president’s initial comments were similar to those Biden made last year in August and October, which were later walked back as well.
What Biden said
- During a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, President Biden and the prime minister were asked about whether their countries would come to Taiwan’s aid on several occasions. Both emphasized that their countries’ commitment to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait hasn’t changed.
- In an exchange with a reporter near the end of the press conference, Biden made a statement that represented a significant departure from what U.S. policy toward Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China has been since the Carter administration. The questioning and Biden’s response went as follows:
Reporter: “You didn’t want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons. 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 are not ― Look, here’s the situation: We agree with the One China policy; we’ve signed on to it and all the attendant agreements made from there. But the idea that ― that it can be taken by force ― just taken by force ― is just not a ― is just not appropriate. It will dislocate the entire region and be another action similar to what happened in Ukraine. And so, it’s a burden that is even stronger.”
Walk back & reaction
- Shortly after the press conference, an unnamed White House official issued a statement to clarify that Biden wasn’t changing U.S. policy relative to Taiwan:
“As the President said, our policy has not changed. He reiterated our One China Policy and our commitment to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. He also reiterated our commitment under the Taiwan Relations Act to provide Taiwan with the military means to defend itself.”
- Biden’s initial comments and the subsequent walk back prompted a response from policymakers who have advocated for the U.S. to end that ambiguity and openly recognize Taiwan and commit to defending it from China. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) released a statement that read:
“I’ve long said that we should change our Taiwan policy from ‘strategic ambiguity’ to ‘strategic clarity’: the United States will come to the defense of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack. As usual, strategic clarity and military strength is the best way to deter China. Given President Biden’s apparent policy shift in off-the-cuff remarks at a press conference in Japan, followed by anonymous White House aides trying to ‘walk back’ his statement, it’s now essential that President Biden restate our new policy of strategic clarity in clear, deliberate remarks from a prepared text. Otherwise, the continued ambiguity will likely provoke the Chinese communists without deterring them―the worst of both worlds.”
- Biden’s comments also drew the ire of the Chinese Communist Party, as Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters in Beijing that Taiwan “is an inalienable part of China’s territory” and warned:
“The Taiwan issue is a purely internal affair for China. On issues touching on China’s core interests of sovereignty and territorial integrity, China has no room for compromise or concession… No one should underestimate the firm resolve, staunch will and strong ability of the Chinese people in defending national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
U.S.-Taiwan relations
- The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and marked an inflection point in U.S.-Taiwan relations and in U.S.-China relations. It effectively replaced the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty between the U.S. and Taiwan.
- That binding defense treaty went into force in 1955, six years after the Chinese Civil War ended with the Chinese Communist Party in control of the mainland (the People’s Republic of China or PRC), and the Nationalist government in charge of Taiwan, formally known as the Republic of China (or ROC). Under the treaty, U.S. troops were stationed in Taiwan similar to how American forces are currently stationed in Japan and South Korea as a forward-deployed deterrent to protect those treaty allies.
- In 1979, Carter annulled the defense treaty when the U.S. broke off formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan and established diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China. One hundred days later, Congress and the Carter administration enacted the TRA to outline the informal U.S.-Taiwan relationship.
- The Taiwan Relations Act states that efforts to determine Taiwan’s future through non-peaceful means (including boycotts or embargoes) threaten peace and security in the Western Pacific; it’s U.S. policy to maintain a capacity to resist the use of force or coercion to undermine Taiwan’s security; the U.S. will provide defensive military equipment so that Taiwan can have a sufficient self-defense capability; that decisions about defending Taiwan will be made by Congress and the president; and that references in U.S. law to foreign states and governments also apply to Taiwan.
- The TRA doesn’t require the U.S. to defend Taiwan against an attack by the PRC, but leaves open the possibility of doing so, creating a policy known as “strategic ambiguity,” which is intended to deter the PRC from attacking Taiwan and deter Taiwan from taking actions like unilaterally declaring independence that could provoke a PRC attack.
- The administration of President Ronald Reagan in 1982 made the “Six Assurances” to Taiwan, which have been a foundational element in U.S. policy toward Taiwan and the PRC ever since. In 2019 and 2020, President Donald Trump’s administration declassified Reagan’s internal presidential memorandum and State Dept. cables that included the definitive language of the Six Assurances, which were that the U.S.:
- Has not agreed to set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan.
- Has not agreed to consult with the PRC on arms sales to Taiwan.
- Will not play a mediation role between Taipei and Beijing.
- Has not agreed to revise the Taiwan Relations Act.
- Has not altered its position regarding sovereignty over Taiwan.
- Will not exert pressure on Taiwan to enter into negotiations with the PRC.
- Bipartisan majorities of Congress have reaffirmed the Six Assurances and the Taiwan Relations Act on several occasions since their adoption, including through recently enacted national defense authorizations and appropriations bills.
- In the wake of the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances, further U.S. administrations have shaped the relationship between the U.S. and Taiwan.
- During a 1998 trip to China, President Bill Clinton outlined the “Three No’s” which is “that we don’t support independence for Taiwan, or ‘two China’s,’ or ‘one Taiwan, one China,’ and we don’t believe that Taiwan should be a member in any organization for which statehood is a requirement.” Clinton’s statement didn’t diverge from existing U.S. policy, but PRC officials tend to inaccurately quote the “Three No’s” as if the U.S. were opposed to Taiwan’s independence, whereas U.S. policy is that it does not support Taiwan’s independence.
- PRC officials also frequently misstate the “one China” policy adopted by the U.S. as agreeing with its own “one-China principle” that the PRC is the only China and Taiwan is part of it. In fact, the U.S. “one China” policy is based on the TRA, the Six Assurances, and several communiques between the U.S. and PRC.
- Under the “one China policy” as adopted by the U.S. government, the U.S. recognizes the PRC as the “sole legal government of China”; acknowledges “the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China” but doesn’t endorse that view; and the U.S. pledges to maintain only unofficial relations with Taiwan.
- In 2003, President George W. Bush designated Taiwan as a de facto major non-NATO ally (MNNA), a designation that grants Taiwan access to enhanced military training, certain defense technologies, surplus equipment, counterterrorism cooperation, space technology exports, and collaboration on equipment stockpiling.
- In early May 2022, the Biden administration updated a fact sheet on the State Dept. website about U.S.-Taiwan relations that reiterated the one-China policy is guided by the joint communiques, the Taiwan Relations Act, and the Six Assurances. The update removed a sentence that had read, “The United States does not support Taiwan independence.” That edit angered the Chinese government, while U.S. officials played down the change because the American government’s stance on Taiwan’s independence is unchanged under the one-China policy.
RELATED READING
- Chinese Military Aircraft Make Large Incursion Into Taiwan's Air Defense Zone - 'Ukraine May Be East Asia Tomorrow' (5/7/22)
- Taiwan Issues War Survival Handbook Civilians Threat of Invasion by China Looms (4/16/22)
- China Criticizes U.S. for Inviting Taiwan to Democracy Summit (11/26/21)
- U.S. Condemns China’s ‘Provocative’ & ‘Destabilizing’ Military Activity Near Taiwan (10/5/21)
- Senate's China Competition Bill Aims to Bolster U.S. Support for Taiwan - Are You in Favor? (6/7/21)
- Blinken Warns China Using Military Force Against Taiwan Would Be ‘Serious Mistake’ (4/12/21)
- Pompeo Lifts Limitations on U.S. Diplomatic Contacts With Taiwan - Are You in Favor? (1/16/21)
— Eric Revell
(Photo Credit: White House photo by Adam Schultz via Flickr / Public Domain)
The Latest
-
How To Help Civilians in UkraineHeavy shelling and fighting have caused widespread death, destruction of homes and businesses, and severely damaged read more... Public Safety -
The Latest: Israel Evacuates Rafah, Palestinian Place of RefugeUpdated May 6, 2024, 12:00 p.m. EST The Israeli military is telling residents of Gaza who have sought shelter in Rafah to read more... Israel -
Trump Hush Money Trial Enters Third Week, Strategy to ‘Deny, Deny, Deny’Updated May 6, 2024, 11:00 a.m. EST The criminal trial to determine whether Trump is guilty of falsifying records to cover up a read more... Law Enforcement -
IT: Battles between students and police intensify, and... 💻 Should we regulate AI access to our private data?Welcome to Thursday, May 2nd, listeners... The battle between protesters and police intensifies on college campuses across the read more...
Climate & Consumption
Health & Hunger
Politics & Policy
Safety & Security
It all depends on just how China might attack Taiwan as to the methods and means that the US should use.
It is clear that much of the world is critically dependent on the wotld leading chip manufacturing capabilities of TMSC - with proprietary fabrication processes to mass produce the smallest scale most densely packed IC's available. I do not think that any other fabricator has been able to get close to these abilities yet. The small scale speeds up IC's dramatically, packs a lot more computing power into a chip and consumes less power.
China's taking of Taiwan would be a huge national security risk to nations of the world dependent on TMSC's production for two reasons. First China could withhold access to TMSC's fabrication capabilities as leverage to push their geo-political strategic goal of dominating the world economy. Second, with China's direction any company is required to support China's covert interests. There have been products produced in China for world use that have hidden hardware level spyware built-in which is virtually impossible to detect. A popular line of high performance low cost computer server boards manufactured in China had a tiny mystery chip installed that forwarded unencrypted server traffic to Chinese sites, The US has refused to use Chinese 5G chip technology because it would be easy to hide spyware at the hardware level. Just imagine the hardware level spyware that could be embedded in TMSC chips that are at the core of iPhones, and very useful for light weight military self guided munitions, cruse missiles, drones, target acquisition and identification systems and so on.
Incidentally, during the trump's tenure, it was discovered that one of the servers used in the White House would periodically and randomly send very short 'blips' of unrecognizable data to seemingly random iPhone addresses. After some investigation, it was determined that these periodic blips were sll headed to Russian computers. There was nothing more reported in this afterwards.
I think it best to keep China guessing just what and just how far the US and allied interests will go to protect Taiwan from a hostile takeover. Biden's comments make it known that the US is willing to protect in some undisclosed manner up to and including possible military intervention to Taiwan's sovereignty and it's rights to choose it's own destiny.
I admire honesty in political leaders instead of vacuous blubbering that stirs emotions without actually saying anything at sll, made up of bullcrap culture wars over Dr. Seuss, keeping critical race theory out of class rooms where it never was taught or recommending burning basic math books because they 'advocate' racial awareness.
The Republican Cartel needs to be politically expunged out of political existence and their right-wing propaganda outlets need to be liability-sued out of existence so we can once again have the balance of an honest, ethical and principled conservative political party willing to debate, collaborate and compromise for the common good of the country instead of focusing all of their efforts to finding big-money interests that they can sell their political influence to and, of course, to retaining their personally profitable positions by 'winning' unearned elections
The US should maintain its policy of “strategic ambiguity” in regards to Taiwan per existing legislation and policy going back to the 1950s and keep all options open depending on what happens.
You heard the man. We all heard him. He meant what he said. And I'm glad that's where he stands.
#GoJoe!
We should assist and support Taiwan's independence, but we should never get directly involved in a war with the People's Republic of China.
I'm with Leslie. We should continue "not to show our hand!" It's best in this world game of cards, to keep a "poker face".
Our military might & intelligence are enough to make any other country think twice about their strategic moves. There is no need to pronounce what we will do...ever.
""Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far"--President Theodore Roosevelt
Taiwan is our longtime ally, and we should defend them as much as we can, although I don't want a war with China. This is why we must use diplomacy as much as possible to ensure Taiwan's peace and safety, so that we can avoid war.
Hopefully President Biden's commitment to Taiwan will bring China to the table instead of enflaming their ambitions.
Biden couldn't defend an UNBORN child if his life depended on it! All he is doing is squandering our money away to foreign countries, whom Hunter had dealings with. This man LOVES a crisis! Our world has never been so distraught, it's disgusting. NO MORALS, NO FAITH!
This would most probably be a walk over for the CCP. They already have military forces strategically placed awaiting the green light. It would not be a repeat of Russia-to-Ukraine but instead would be more like what Putin had hoped for - over in a matter of days. This current US administraton demonstrates on a daily basis a level of incompetence never seen. Okay, maybe the Carter years but too many Obama retreads are pulling old illegit Joe's strings. Consider the pairing of Afghanistan and Ukraine and you should all have pause for great concern should we consider blooding the nose of the CCP.
The US will intervene in Taiwan if China attacks Taiwan, but we won't intervene against Russia attacking Ukraine. Why is that??? Oh, perhaps Taiwan produces products that we need and want, while Ukraine doesn't produce much for us. Is that it??? Have we reached the number of Ukrainian people who must die before we and NATO will intervene? How high is the number of Ukrainian people who must die? 90% of the population??? 95% of the population?? Is it a specific number? How about 25,000, or perhaps 35,000 dead Ukrainians? But Russia might use nuclear weapons against us or Ukraine! They are already using the nuclear facility as a weapon, and maybe they'll sacrifice Russian soldiers and blow up the nuclear facility in Ukraine! I am not a war monger, but I do not believe in watching people being slaughtered by another invading country! Hitler and Putin; same mindset, just a different era.......
I'm sick and tired of China!
Why should our Soldiers die on their land?? Teach them to fight their own battles!!
I think maybe we should rethink our policy on Taiwan. In today's world, while we watch Russia invade Ukraine and China, who is no friend of ours, threaten Taiwan, maybe we should show some backbone for a change and protect Taiwan.
We should only be protecting ourselves the people that live in the United States. And I'm not talking about immigrants I'm talking about born and raised in the United States let's take care of our own.......
The whole point is to keep China guessing. Only a dimwitt would tell their advisaries how they will respond. Telling our adversaries what we were going to do is exaxtly what Trump did in Syria and Afghanastan. Those did not work out so well.
We do not want a war with China. And the possibility that Russia would back China. Stay out of this one Biden. Don't we have enough going on here in the USA ?
This is a wait and see!!!
Not our lane. We have too many mouthing off who are clueless about China. It is a self inflicted wound that we are so dependent upon Taiwan and China. Thanks to our elected officials, initiated by George W and Rumsfeld, we seek 2-years' immediate savings to influence reelection prospects. Making it worse, the same elected officials are too narrow minded to consider long term effects and national security provided by guaranteed access to critical components and precious metals.
When will they create a walk it back dept? Thats about seven times Joe has blundered on the national stage and his handlers have had to clarify what he actually meant,wink wink
NO TO WAR!! STOP THE WORLD POLICE BULLYING US
Biden would love to have nuclear war.
The Biden administration is doing the right thing to stand with Taiwan
We have to defend Taiwan against China, who is lead by a Dictator who wants to stop the Democracy in Taiwan. China much like Russia is out to destroy & take over every Democratic Country they can. Both those countries are afraid of loosing power to their own people. The people of those countries & their younger generations, want freedom of Choice, that is why many young people of Russia & Chinawant to leave. We the United States along with all Democratic & Nato Countries have to do all they can to Defend Taiwan, just like Ukraine to stop the Bloody Killing Machines that China & Russia have become.
We should always stand with democracies. Also, TSMC is one of the most advanced, and maybe the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing fab in the world. If China took over Taiwan they would control that capability and have access to the chip design for many locations, probably most chip designs for American companies
Basically our Corporations have left us no choice! Most of our clothing comes from Taiwan now. We have seen how COVID has effected this, since basically our clothing isn't made in America! The clothing in stores is mostly prior COVID, left over from past years. If we want or need new clothes we will have to help defend the Countries that make it for our Corporations now! This could change if we once again make our own clothing in America. I don't see this happening since our Corporations are more interested in profit than quality, and would rather use a Country where they can set up the sweat shops America no longer allows, and pay workers less to increase their profit! It's sad that the CEOs don't understand that a worker treated with respect and paid well, creates a better product! These CEOs are will to sacrifice quality for profit!
Depends on the agreement we have with them.
I see this as little different from Ukraine. Big countries like China and Russia should not be in the business of invading other countries because they feel they should have greater control over a territory or, for that matter, feel they are owed something.
Who exactly is it in the Whitehouse that can change the guarentees of the President of the United States? I think we should change that immediately!