On Monday, during a high-profile visit to Japan, President Biden said the US would intervene “militarily” if China invaded Taiwan, a comment that White House officials later walked back.
At a news conference in Tokyo with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Biden was asked if the US would intervene in Taiwan more directly than it has in Ukraine. “You didn’t want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons,” a reporter said to the president. “Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?”
“Yes,” Biden responded. “That’s the commitment we made.” He said that the US has agreed to the One China policy but said the idea “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.”
Biden’s comments were initially taken by the media as a change in the US policy of “strategic ambiguity” around Taiwan. Under the decades-old policy, the US provides Taiwan with arms but does not commit to defending the island in the event of a Chinese invasion. But White House officials later said Biden’s comments in Tokyo did not mean a change in policy.
White House officials insisted that Biden meant the US would send military equipment to Taiwan, not send troops to the island to fight China. Earlier in the news briefing, Biden had said that the US’s Taiwan policy had not changed. “As the president said, our policy has not changed,” a White House spokesperson said.
The White House has had to clarify comments Biden has made about Taiwan repeatedly throughout his presidency. Last October, he said during a CNN town hall the US had a “commitment” to defend Taiwan, which the White House walked back.
Back in 2001, then-Senator Joe Biden criticized President George W. Bush for suggesting that the US would defend Taiwan, then later walking it back. In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Biden wrote that “words matter” and said Bush hurt the credibility of the US by making such comments due to an “inattention to detail.”
China on Monday slammed Biden for the comments he made in Tokyo. “China expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to the remarks by the US side,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said. Wang added that Taiwan was an issue Beijing would not “compromise” on. “China will take firm actions to safeguard its sovereignty and security interests. We mean what we say,” he said.
Every time Dementia goes off script and tries to answer a question on his own the world becomes a little more dangerous.
Not a little. He keeps playing around with the nuclear button, fiddling with it like a child who can’t keep his hands off it.
Fortunately the football isn’t kept on his person.
right. they would never let any POTUS have a real button
He does not care. I believe he will not run in 2024. Born 11/20/1942, he will be nearly 80. Biden has had an episode of afib. He is on blood thinners (why?).
Well, if he’s blood thinners they’re not working very well, as he doesn’t seem to be getting any blood to his brain.
Oxygen deprivation…
It could just be misspeaking constantly …
On the other hand, it could be good cop, bad cop in service of a similar situation as Ukraine: build a huge trap for China. “Force” China to take steps it does not want to take (invading Taiwan), thereby painting a giant sanctions target on itself.
I think they just play it by ear. Whatever stupid sh*t he says can be used in different ways and they just pick the one that suits their needs. The good cop/bad cop scenario does make sense even if it wasn’t the original plan. I guess being 79 and having those “senior moments” comes in handy at times.
He was born in 1942. He will be 79 in November. But, yeah, close enough.
80!
Oh, yeah. Somebody should ask him how those sanctions are working out.
If you put heavy sanctions on China there will be no more products to buy in the USA, across a very broad spectrum. China is the real boss, USA is in far 2nd place.
That works both ways. We CONSUME.
Strategic ambiguity and the status quo has kept the peace for what, 7 decades now? …If it ain’t broken, break it and start world war 3?
Both sides will loose,just as in Ukraine.
Weekend at Bidens. While the NATO Powers literally starve their populations the people of the Donbass will remain well fed. All NATO can do is destroy nations. Arrest them all for crimes against humanity.
A very large group of East Germans were demanding the Wall be put back. You cant make this sheet up.
Unlike Iraq, the cool thing about Moscow’s WMD’s is you dont have to search for them, they will search for you.
If I ever had any thoughts that Bye/Done hadn’t totally lost it, they’ve just been dispelled.
Ambiguity had value to the US and Taiwan. Loss of it is a real loss.
I do not see that the US government even considered that. Biden just did it, off the cuff.
Now Chinese hard liners have a major new argument for their all or nothing solutions.
Taiwan has a major new threat from them, and has lost the hope approaches from China not run by those hard liners.
The US has drawn a red line, and now faces the fate of all nations that draw red lines — a politically popular thing in the moment that comes back to haunt when most critical.
Should the 25th amendment be invoked with this demented old fruitcake? Could Kamala just shut up for two and a half years if she were to become Prez? Just wondering. (Were everybody in the USG to just stop talking, I think the quality of US diplomacy would markedly improve.)
He is saying that because he knows China will not move on Taiwan unless Taiwan declares independence as such he sees no harm in talking tough.
Biden doesn’t know what planet he is on. He is merely a puppet for obama.
Biden is an imperialist with Alzheimer’s. The problem isn’t that he’s tripping up the policy. The problem is that he’s accidentally telling the truth. That’s what happened in Poland when he admitted that we use chemical weapons and have boots on the ground in Ukraine. That’s what’s happening now that he admits our ambitions to fight a world war with China. Biden isn’t insane, he’s just a cognitively incompetent sociopath.
What Biden says he wants to do may not match what he actually can do or is doing. Taiwan’s entire strategy is deterrence and war prevention; US guarantees to defend Taiwan were part of this.
First of all China seems unlikely to attack Taiwan, second the US couldn’t do very much if they did, and third, Taiwan isn’t being armed for a real fight but ‘asymmetrical defense’.
https://www.us-taiwan.org/resources/ustbc-responds-to-the-biden-administrations-new-taiwan-arms-sales-policy/
Taiwan has been refused the big ticket weapons they want such as artillery and sub-hunting helicopters, in favour of guerilla resistance gear and mass mobilization.
This can’t impress the Taiwanese government very much very much. Big ticket arms meant deterrence. ‘Assymetrical warfare’ and mass mobilization plans means expecting/inviting China to attack.
China will not invade Taiwan, it doesn’t want to risk war with the US. The US & Taiwan will continue their cold war against China.
You may be surprised, and then it will be too late.
Some of his staff are said to be unhappy by his Taiwan blurting. Probably not about the principle but about the costs. At the very least ten times Ukraine. The defense of Taiwan, whatever that means, may well run into the trillions of dollars.
And hundreds of millions DEAD…
What are they thinking..??? Maybe divine intervention…?????
The Ukraine War counter has just started.
Zelensky and his cronies know the West spent US$ 2.3 trillion over 20 years in Afghanistan.
That works out to ~$100 000 000 a year.
I’m about fed up with President Biden making statements and every.freaking.time his staff immediately goes to work walking it back or ‘governmentsplaining’ what he REALLY meant. What’s going to happen when something major really does happen and he makes a crucial statement or decision and there’s no time to walk it back? Is this how we intend to ensure our national security- by constantly having to course-correct the President every time he opens his mouth? An even better question is this: when the President makes one of these questionable statements, who decides whether or not to walk it back and/or interpret his REAL meaning? That’s the real person (or persons) we need to be speaking to about what’s happening to our nation.
US is already defending taiwan or it would be part of china
Biden should register with a mental institution asap…!
Someone give this Bozo some lessons on diplomacy. Not understanding the motivations of the big players at this time by the Biden Administra is an unfathomable shortcoming. Can anyone think of a worse time for them to hector China…????? Or is their malaise of hubris become so acute & pervasive that they plunge free fall speed into confrontation with potentially TWO peer superpower thermonuclear avversaries which seemingly Biden is confident will be some minimal problem: INSANE or SENILE..??? It really seems to be a
distinction without much practical difference.