US President Joe Biden reiterated in Tokyo on Tuesday that Washington’s “strategic ambiguity” towards Taiwan remains unchanged, while the day before he had pledged that the US would defend the island militarily if attacked by China.
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“No,” Mr. Biden replied when asked by journalists if this American doctrine on Taiwan is now a thing of the past. “Politics haven’t changed at all, I said that yesterday,” he added.
For several decades, American “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan has consisted of diplomatically recognizing only mainland China while simultaneously committing to giving the autonomous island the military means of defense in the event of an invasion, but without explicitly promising American intervention.
The White House, and then the Pentagon, had already rushed Monday to ensure that doctrine hadn’t changed following Mr. Biden’s final words for media around the world to interpret: increased firmness on Beijing or new presidential blunder?
“That’s the commitment we made,” Biden said in Tokyo on Monday, when the press asked him whether the United States would intervene militarily in the event of an invasion of Taiwan by Russia, unlike U.S. Ukraine.
Taiwan, a territory ruled by a Beijing-based autonomous government since the end of China’s civil war in 1949, on Monday hailed the apparent expansion of American engagement articulated by Mr. Biden, while China had seen red and invoked its “sovereignty.” ‘ and accused Washington of ‘playing with fire’.
Joe Biden has been in Tokyo since Sunday, where he will meet the leaders of the other Quad countries on Tuesday, a diplomatic format that brings together Japan, Australia and India alongside the United States and is designed as an alliance to offset the growing weight of China in Asia – Pacific Rim.