US President Joe Biden has done it again — for the third time in the past nine months he has stated that the US will defend Taiwan. And for the third time, his administration officials have rushed to “clarify” that US policy toward Taiwan “has not changed” and Washington still follows its “one China policy.”
That is the same scenario that played out with two other presidents. When asked the question posed to Biden in 2001, then-US president George W. Bush said Washington would do “whatever it took” to defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression.
In 2020, then-US president Donald Trump answered the question with a menacing tone conveying clarity and resolve: “China knows what I’m gonna do.”
On both occasions, as with Biden, presidential aides were quick to correct any misimpression about a change in US policy.
Now that it has happened five times, with three different presidents, the established pattern can mean only one of three things:
Explanation one: Over a span of 21 years, three US presidents were uninformed, unprepared, careless and/or confused about US policy on a critical national security issue that could theoretically result in a war between two nuclear powers.
Each time, their subordinates rushed to correct the record and prevent a potential crisis based on strategic miscalculation across the Taiwan Strait.
Aides in the US Department of State and elsewhere worried that a US security guarantee to Taiwan would encourage Taipei either (a) to act precipitously, such as by declaring formal independence, or (b) to relax its own self-defense efforts and rely entirely on the US to protect it. The former course would supposedly provoke a violent Chinese response; the latter, a show of weakness, would almost certainly invite Chinese aggression. (President Tsai Ing-wen [蔡英文] shows no disposition to take either approach, but some US officials fear a change in policy under hers or a new administration.)
Explanation two: Bush, Trump and Biden knew exactly what they were saying, knew that it expressed actual US policy, and wanted to clearly convey US determination to China.
They fully expected other administration officials to issue statements tempering their own forthrightness in the interest of diplomatic stability and risk-balancing.
Explanation three: The three presidents and their staffs were effectively reading from a script, acting out a bad cop-good cop charade, the president speaking boldly to warn China, knowing the staff would put things right by cautioning Taipei not to press the issue.
The first hypothesis, presidential blundering, can be ruled out fairly quickly. Standard administration briefing procedures, decisionmaking processes and political considerations ensure that every president knows at least the parameters of all major issues.
Both the second and third explanations assume that in this case Biden knew the question was coming given the international situation and that he and his team had prepared his response. (The first question in the Tokyo press conference, directed at the host, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, was on Taiwan. As soon as it was asked, Biden pulled out a sheet of paper, presumably with his talking points.)
A few questions later, Biden was asked: “You didn’t want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons. Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan, if it comes to that?” He responded: “Yes. That’s the commitment we made... The idea that it can be taken by force — is just not appropriate. It will dislocate the entire region and be another action similar to what happened in Ukraine. And so, it’s a burden that is even stronger.”
Within hours, China also played its familiar role, objecting to Biden’s statement and warning yet again that Beijing is serious about its claim to Taiwan. What Chinese leaders are undoubtedly mulling now is which of the two hypotheses described above is correct — whether they were witnessing an actual declaration of a serious new US commitment to Taiwan’s security, or just Biden’s rhetoric intended to deter China without having his bluff called.
Biden’s further comment a few minutes later might be seen as suggesting the latter.
“My expectation is it will not happen; it will not be attempted,” he added.
Former and current military officials have expressed more dire predictions.
In assessing whether Biden is truly committed to defending Taiwan, China will surely take into account some recent history: the disastrous abandonment of Afghanistan, the crossed red lines in Syria, China’s unpunished violation of the US-brokered Mischief Reef (Meiji Reef, 美濟礁) agreement with the Philippines, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) broken commitment to former US president Barack Obama not to militarize the South China Sea, US acquiescence to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2014 invasions of Ukraine, etc.
Biden’s response to Russia’s current invasion of Ukraine raises fresh doubts over his willingness to directly defend Taiwan beyond sending self-defense weapons as required by the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA). Asked in February before the invasion if Washington would intervene in Ukraine, he emphatically stated it would not, because “that’s world war III.”
Yet, he said the US and NATO would defend “every inch of NATO territory” even though that would also mean war with nuclear-armed Russia. The difference, he said, is that Article 5 of NATO’s Charter requires collective defense, which he deems “a sacred obligation.”
The question Beijing must be pondering is whether Biden believes the TRA (one of the “attendant agreements” of the “one China” policy he mentioned in passing) imposes a similar obligation to defend Taiwan or whether it is more like Ukraine’s situation, where the US will provide defensive weapons, training and intelligence, while Ukraine alone does the actual fighting.
He explicitly linked the Ukraine and Taiwan situations: “One of the reasons why it’s so important that Putin pay a dear price for his barbarism in Ukraine” is it is not just about Ukraine.
If sanctions against Russia are not continued, “then what signal does that send to China about the cost of attempting ... to take Taiwan by force? They’re already flirting with danger right now by flying so close and all the maneuvers they’ve undertaken,” he added.
Weighing on the side of the argument that Biden is more likely to intervene directly in Taiwan than he was in Ukraine was his comment that “after what happened in Ukraine ... it’s a burden that is even stronger.”
Indicating continued deference to China, however, is the administration’s decision to exclude Taiwan from its proposed Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington prefers to deal with Taiwan bilaterally. However, the IPEF is an informal, US-created grouping, not an established international organization. It is a perfect forum to raise Taiwan’s international status and integrate it into another cooperative multilateral enterprise, like Biden’s Summit for Democracy, without running into the vexing membership issues revolving around statehood status. It is a missed opportunity.
On the other hand, Biden has generally continued and expanded the Trump administration’s policy changes that have enhanced Taiwan’s international status and its security posture. Washington is edging even closer to a one China, one Taiwan policy that should avoid the confusion over Beijing’s “one China” principle and Washington’s “one China” policy. Biden should make clear that the use of force or further coercion against Taiwan will bring the US into direct conflict with China and that war will mean independence and US recognition of Taiwan.
With so many mixed signals on US policy toward Taiwan, it is all the more essential now for the Biden administration to articulate a fully fleshed-out Taiwan policy position, sooner rather than later.
Joseph Bosco, who served as China country director in the office of the US secretary of defense, is a fellow of the Institute for Taiwan-American Studies and a member of the Global Taiwan Institute’s advisory committee.
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