The somewhat routine press conference in Tokyo was winding down when the question came. “Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?”
Many past American presidents would have deflected, demurred, declined to give a straight answer. Not Joe Biden. “Yes,” he replied bluntly, adding: “That’s the commitment we made.”
Reporters at the scene were taken aback. Sebastian Smith, the White House correspondent for Agence France-Presse, tweeted that Biden’s answer “really raised adrenaline levels in that palace briefing room right now. Next we all get to try and explain what it all actually means.”
One possible meaning is that America has abandoned its long-held position of “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan. But Biden may have delivered not so much strategic clarity as strategic confusion. That would be on brand for a president who has made a habit of speaking without a diplomatic filter.
China considers the democratic island of Taiwan its territory under its “one-China” principle, and says it is the most sensitive and important issue in its relationship with Washington.
This is where strategic ambiguity comes in. While the US is required by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, it has never directly promised to intervene militarily in a conflict with China – but also never promised to stay out.
This deliberate vagueness has – so far – helped deter China from invading from Taiwan while also helping deter the self-ruled island from declaring full independence. Either scenario would trigger a major geopolitical crisis.
Last year, Kurt Campbell, the US policy coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, defended the principle of strategic ambiguity, saying there were “significant downsides” to “strategic clarity”.
But Biden has already shown himself less comfortable with shades of grey than his predecessors, insisting on a full withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan last year despite the ensuing chaos and collapse than enabled the Taliban to regain power. He has also been pushing the envelope on Taiwan for some time.
In an ABC News interview last August, he appeared to put Taiwan in the same category as other countries with which Washington has explicit defence commitments, such as South Korea.
Then, in October, the president told CNN town hall, “Yes, we have a commitment to do that,” when asked if the US would come to the defence of Taiwan. Bonnie Glaser, a Taiwan expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States thinktank in Washington, called Biden’s remark a “gaffe” and said it was “patently not true” that the US has a commitment to defend Taiwan.
Since then Biden has reiterated America’s “rock-solid” commitment to Taiwan, influential congressman Adam Schiff has urged the Biden administration to be less ambiguous about the issue, and Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, has warned that the US and its allies would take unspecified “action” if China were to use force to alter the status quo over Taiwan.
After Biden made the remark at a joint press conference on Monday with Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida, an aide said the president’s statement represented no change in the long-standing American stance to the island. A source told CNN that Biden meant providing weapons, not deploying boots on the ground.
But with Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin expressing “strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition” to Biden’s comments, such clean-ups look increasingly untenable.
Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations thinktank in Washington, tweeted: “This is the third time Potus has spoken out in favor of strategic clarity on Taiwan and third time WH staff has tried to walk it back. Better to embrace it as new US stance, one that is fully consistent with one-China policy but that alters how US will go about implementing it.”
Glaser, of the the German Marshall Fund, added in a…
Read More: Biden’s Taiwan vow creates confusion not clarity – and raises China tensions | Joe Biden