White House Desperately Trying To Dial Back Biden’s Taiwan Comments
Post by Tyler Durden | Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com
Last week, President Biden set out a new position on Taiwan, reversing years of US ambiguity by saying he absolutely would go to war with China over the island. Since then, officials have been looking to dial that back.
The talk has been that Biden’s statement was a “gaffe,” and officials are now trying to revise that by insisting US policy has not changed, in spite of Biden’s comments being a very direct change from the status quo.
Biden seemed to want to get out in front of tensions between China and Taiwan, but in committing the US explicitly to such a war, many warn that he is making military confrontation more likely. This was doubly the case when China responded by saying their position isn’t going to change.
Here’s what he said in last Thursday’s CNN town hall:
COOPER: “Are you saying that the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense?”
QUESTIONER: “If China attacked?”
BIDEN: “Yes, we have a commitment to do that.” pic.twitter.com/YTgxMaD4MP
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 22, 2021
And on Friday the White House tried to downplay and walk back the comments:
“He wasn’t announcing a change in policy nor have we changed our policy,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. “We are guided by the Taiwan Relations Act.”
The Defense Department too sought to dodge the implications of Biden’s statements:
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday dodged questions about Biden’s remarks, and about whether the U.S. would defend Taiwan from a military attack by China.
“Nobody wants to see cross-strait issues come to blows, certainly not President Biden, and there’s no reason that it should,” Austin said from NATO headquarters in Brussels. Austin also said the US remained committed to the Taiwan Relations Act and the “One China” policy.
Neither side is interested in talks or compromises, and the administration now seems to want to avoid further talk of Biden’s position by restoring some measure of ambiguity by offering contradictory statements on the matter. At best, that would put the US back in a position that Biden felt he needed to revise in the first place.
It isn’t about the internal doubts of Taiwan, but concerns with the reaction in Pacific nations — China’s own response, along with concerns about South Korea and other regional powers that the US is threatening stability.
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(TLB) published this article posted by Tyler Durden and authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com
Header featured image (edited) credit: Biden & Student/CNN screen shot
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Biden was never a soldier so he has already proven that he would never have sufficient courage in any situation. This Commander in Chief is approaching severe Alzheimer’s Disease. Biden clearly is usually totally befuddled at too dangerous degrees for America. He should resign and VP Harris should step up to the top job.
Wars have to be among the worst horrors a person can endure and a Sino-American war would rack up real casualties on American soil for the first time in almost a century. If it came to war, I dread to think how it would play out for America with the trifecta of befuddled incompetence of the current Commander-in-Chief Biden, the Chinese Communist Party sympathizer General Milley willfully telegraphing his orders forward to the enemy, and a national debt so colossal from past aimless misguided Middle Eastern “regime change” wars of the past 2 decades that the expenditure of a few Daisy Red Rider BB guns would likely tip the economy off a cliff.
We’ve got a responsibility to look out for Taiwan, but the U.S. having blown its load in this recent 20 year wargasm without vision, we’re not looking so mighty. Now is NOT the time to be overtly belligerent, especially under this passionless leader who is too senile to muster the leadership qualities necessary.