Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the head of the House Intelligence Committee, wants the Biden administration to be less ambiguous about its obligation to defend Taiwan. The current US policy of “strategic ambiguity” means it’s not clear if the US would intervene if China moves to take Taiwan.
“I think probably less ambiguity is better than more ambiguity,” Schiff told the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday. “We need to be much clearer about our obligation to defend Taiwan.”
Schiff did not outright say that the US should commit to going to war with China if it invades Taiwan, acknowledging that there is a “fine line to walk in when we talk about coming to Taiwan’s military aid.”
President Biden called into question the strategic ambiguity policy last month when he said the US has a “commitment” to defend Taiwan if China invades. White House officials were quick to clarify that Biden’s comment did not mean a change in policy, but the idea of committing to going to war with China over the island is becoming more popular in Washington even though it risks nuclear war.
Ultra hawks in Washington like Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) have been calling for the US to adopt a policy of “strategic clarity” that would obligate Washington to go to war over Taiwan. Some Republicans and Democrats are even ready to give President Biden war powers that would allow him to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion.
Who else?
The fellows who would grant powers should be in the first flotilla to take hits.
Why the change in policy from past policy wherein we said we were opposed to either side attempting to change the status quo of One China. Taiwan is the guilty party here, for talking about independence and, of course relying on the good graces of the American taxpayer, to come to their rescue.
If the USA definitely proclaimed that it would NOT accept Taiwan declaring “independence” it could continue as has been possible so far and China would not be pushed to react.
Euripides: “Whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad.”
These people are OUT OF THEIR FREAKING MINDS. A long period of picking on pipsqueak countries and conducting wars at remote has made them think they can treat China and Russia the same way … they are MAD!
Exactly.
No living American has seen war at home. To Americans, war is something that happens far away and has no consequences to their daily routine.
Russia and China on the other hand, have people still living that have personally seen some of the greatest massacres in human history.
To Americans, whenever war becomes boring, they simply pack up and go home like nothing ever happened.
The Russians and Chinese will not let US troops escape scot free back to the safety of “home base” if hostilities start. If that happens, American civilians will experience just how “glorious” war really is.
“President Biden called into question the strategic ambiguity policy last month when he said the US has a “commitment” to defend Taiwan if China invades.”
The gift that keeps on giving. Even pissants like Schiff grow balls.
Cotton (R) and Schiff (D) should be exposed for their warmongering against China, Russia, and humanity as a whole every minute of every day. The fact that they represent both their corrupt parties should not be lost. If you need an example for a fact being “self evident,” look no further and enjoy.
It is hardly a secret any longer that our presidents and that includes Biden have become analogs of the German Chancellors when Germany had a Kaiser. Chancellor Bismarck did not need the approval of Germany’s people through their elected representatives in the Reichstag to attack Austria and France and Reagan, Clinton, Bush I, Bush II, Obama, Trump, and Biden had and have almost the same power which has been conveniently decoupled from the nuclear issue.
I paraphrase a saying about Prussia. We the United States of America are an army with a country and that army is very expensive.
Even before Reagan, it was always easy for our Presidents to go to war. When Americans are reluctant to go to war, all our Presidents needed was an incident, false flag, or atrocity propaganda such as WMDs, soldiers killing/eating children, throwing babies out of incubators, etc. The problem is we quickly forget their lies and don’t wake up ’till too late. It’s gotten so bad to the point that our Presidents no longer bother being creative in their justification. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda
I think this weekend is when the NFL’s coaches put their camouflage costumes on. There should be several flyovers, more than normal. The pregame shows will go overseas to meet some of those happy lovable troops that are keeping us safe. They’ll be yelling and screaming for their favorite teams and we’ll get introduced to some of them. Amazingly never a bad recruit amongst them. The announcers will tell us, until we want to puke, how lucky we are to have all those brave young men and women keeping us safe. Keeping us safe is something you will be hearing repeatedly. This happens the weekend before AND after “veterans day” and everthing in between.. So it’s like the Hannukkah of veterans day.
Adam Schiff has always been a right wing hawk, from a military industrial district. He only pretends to be a Democrat because he’s in California.
Democrats are right wing hawks too so he’s not really pretending. Actually our entire government seems to consist only of right wing hawks.
Why not at least read the information China provides about its reason for defending the legal agreement about the “ONE China Policy” which seems to be forgotten by all Western media? To hear the Taiwan president pretend Taiwan is “the Republic of China” is risible-she ignored the last fifty years since PRC was finally accepted as the real representative of China, and the USA accepted this and claims to keep to international law.
The Intercept‘s Jon Schwarz offers a worthwhile analysis of all the pretending that’s been going on vis a vis Taiwan:
“Chiang Kai-shek pretended for years that he was the true leader of China and was going to marshal forces to take back the mainland. The PRC continues to pretend that Taiwan is part of China — although by this point it clearly is its own nation — while also being willing to continue the status quo as long as Taiwan does not formally declare independence. The United Nations, under strong pressure from the U.S., pretended until 1971 that the ROC was the legitimate government of all of China and hence controlled China’s vote on the U.N. Security Council. (That year, the U.N. General Assembly passed the famous Resolution 2758, which recognized the PRC as ‘the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations.’) The United States pretended until 1978 that the ROC was actually China, when we switched and recognized the PRC as the ‘sole legal government of China.’ Since then, we have pretended that Taiwan is not a sovereign nation while also not recognizing China’s claims of sovereignty over the island.”
To pretend that the USA cares about sovereign nations is a joke. Yugoslavia was a viable country until it was broken up by NATO, and Serbia included a province called Kosovo, which the USA decided was a “sovereign state” and removed and recognised it as such. Israel, of course, is a sovereign state of infinite borders!!!
Took until the very end of the article for the author to make the most important point.
Now, this part is very close to the real reason the US is involved in Taiwan. Empire building and maintenance.
Now, since this a western media outlet, the article would not be complete without some internal contradictions, cognitive dissonance or outright lies. Here is one. Earlier in the article, Schwarz claims Taiwan is its own nation while later also claiming it is a vassal state to the US.
Now, since the US is involved, this issue will NEVER be solved diplomatically since the US does understand that concept at all.
No, it will be decided by force or threats of of force. The only language Americans comprehend.
There is no ambiguity. The US recognized that there is only one China and Taiwan is part of it. https://www.ait.org.tw/our-relationship/policy-history/key-u-s-foreign-policy-documents-region/u-s-prc-joint-communique-1979/
Ask the people, the vast majority of the people of Taiwan and of the Mainland do not want war. There might be a majority of the people of Taiwan that want independence but that remains to be seen. If I remember right, way back when, the majority of the people from the south in the United Stares wanted independence but we did not allow it because of the risks which compared to today’s world, didn’t include weapons of mass destruction. It makes one wonder what kind of game the US is playing, taunting and provoking China almost continually, like playing with fire.