Biden takes aggressive posture toward China on Asia trip
In a news conference Monday, Biden said the United States would defend Taiwan militarily if it came under attack by China, despite the U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity.” Later, his administration announced the outlines of a new trade agreement that is meant to strengthen U.S. economic ties with other nations in the Indo-Pacific.
Later this week, Biden will participate in a meeting of the Quad, the partnership made up of the United States, India, Japan and Australia that is in part meant to counter China’s power globally.
On Taiwan, a White House official walked back his remarks almost immediately, saying Biden simply had re-emphasized a pledge made through a 1979 law that calls on the United States to provide Taiwan with the military means for self-defense. The United States retains a policy of strategic ambiguity toward the island, meaning it is deliberately unclear on what it would do when it comes to the issue of defending Taiwan.
But taken together, it underscored the Biden administration’s aggressive strategy to blunt the rising influence of China — as the president drew parallels to a potential conflict escalating between China and Taiwan to the existing conflict spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia has to pay a long term price for that in terms of the sanctions that have been imposed,” Biden said during a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio at Akasaka Palace. “If in fact there’s a rapprochement met between … the Ukrainians and Russia, and these sanctions are not continued to be sustained in many ways, then what signal does that send to China about the cost of attempting — attempting — to take Taiwan by force?”
Though the president said he did not expect such an invasion, Biden said China was “already flirting with danger” and said despite the United States’ “one China” policy, “that does not mean that China has the … jurisdiction to go in and use force to take over Taiwan.”
Julia Mio Inuma in Tokyo and Michael E. Miller in Sydney contributed to this report.