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Biden’s Firm Stance on Taiwan
As China attempts to position itself as a global peacemaker, where does that leave the Biden Administration on Taiwan?
“You talked about our adversaries, China and Russia,” news anchor George Stephanopoulos asked President Joe Biden during an August 2021 interview, just after the disastrous U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan. “You already see China telling Taiwan, ‘See? You can’t count on the Americans.”
“We have made — kept every commitment,” Biden replied testily. “We made a sacred commitment to Article Five that if in fact, anyone were to invade or take action against our NATO allies, we would respond. Same with Japan, same with South Korea, same with — Taiwan. It’s not even comparable to talk about that.”
It was an excellent speech, minus one important point: The U.S. has no formal defense treaty with Taiwan — which is not a member of NATO. Biden’s off-the-cuff honesty about Taiwan forced Biden Administration officials into their first series of walk-backs on the subject.
President Biden did the same thing in May 2022 — vigorously promising to defend Taiwan, leaving his staff to walk back the comments. Biden made yet a third promise to defend Taiwan in a September 2022 interview which was quickly rescinded by his staff.