“Look, here’s the situation,” Biden told reporters during a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo. “We agree to the one China policy. We signed it and made all the associated agreements, but the idea that it can be taken by force is (just not) appropriate.”
The president has made similar statements in the past, only to have the White House say longstanding US policy toward the self-governing island has not changed. The US provides Taiwan with defensive weapons but has deliberately remained ambiguous about whether it would intervene militarily in the event of a Chinese attack.
As part of the “One China” policy, the US recognizes China’s position that Taiwan is part of China, but has never officially recognized Beijing’s claim to the island of 23 million people.
In a statement following Biden’s comments on Monday, a White House official said the US official position remains unchanged. “As the President said, our policy has not changed. He reaffirmed 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,” the official said.
Taiwan is less than 177 kilometers off the coast of China. For more than 70 years, the two sides have been governed separately, but that hasn’t stopped China’s ruling Communist Party from claiming the island — although it has never controlled it.
In recent weeks, Beijing has sent dozens of fighter jets into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone and Chinese leader Xi Jinping has said a “reunification” between China and Taiwan is inevitable but refused to rule out the use of force.
Biden compared a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, warning “It will upset the entire region” and stressing “Russia will have to pay a long-term price for its actions.”
“And the reason I bother to say that, not just about Ukraine — if indeed, after everything he’s done, there is a rapprochement… between the Ukrainians and Russia, and those sanctions will then come in many ways.” Respect Not Maintained What signal does this send to China about the cost of trying, of trying, to take Taiwan by force?
Biden said that China is “already flirting with danger by flying so close and all the maneuvers it’s doing.”
“But the United States has made a commitment, we have made a commitment, we support the one China policy, we support everything we’ve done in the past, but that doesn’t mean, it doesn’t mean China has the capability who, sorry, jurisdiction to intervene and use force to take over Taiwan,” he added.