In what is being portrayed as another gaffe, President Joe Biden said in an interview broadcast on CBS News’s “60 Minutes” program last night that if China attacked Taiwan, the U.S. would come to Taiwan’s defense. “What should Chinese President Xi know about your commitment to Taiwan?” interviewer Scott Pelley asked Biden. “We agree with what we signed onto a long time ago,” Biden said. “And that there’s one China policy, and Taiwan makes their own judgments about their independence. We are not moving—we’re not encouraging their being independent. We’re not—that—that’s their decision.” (The formulation is reminiscent of the way the U.S. opened the door to Ukraine’s participation in NATO, all the while proclaiming it was “their decision.”)
“But would U.S. forces defend the island?” Pelley asked. Biden replied: “Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack.”
“So unlike Ukraine, to be clear, sir,” Pelley pressed, “U.S. forces, U.S. men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion?”
“Yes,” the President said.
After the interview, a White House official told CBS News that U.S. policy on Taiwan has not changed. Officially, the U.S. maintains “strategic ambiguity” on whether American forces would defend Taiwan, but the Taiwan Relations Act obligates the U.S. to help equip Taiwan to defend itself. (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-joe-biden-60-minutes-interview-transcript-2022-09-18/)
Not surprisingly, Biden’s comments set off fireworks in Beijing. “The U.S. remarks ... severely violate the important commitment the U.S. made not to support Taiwan independence, and send a seriously erroneous signal to Taiwanese separatist independence forces,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said this morning. “We are willing to make the biggest sincere efforts to strive for the prospect of peaceful reunification,” Mao said. “At the same time, we will never tolerate any activities aimed at splitting the country, and reserve the choice to take all necessary measures.”
