The United States has been having some interesting…communication problems with China. Some of them are originating from the president. Since October, there have been several statements that the White House has had to “walk back”, clarifying our actual stance on Taiwan.
This isn’t a new phenomenon, but during his visit to Japan recently, he said a few things that are going to really piss off the People’s Republic. I will use his words so there is no misunderstanding.
Two things could be happening here:
#1 Biden is not up to speed on our policy regarding Taiwan, or
#2 The remarks are part of our continuing policy of strategic ambiguity.
#1 is always possible, if we are to keep advancing the theory that Biden’s mental acuity is declining and he’s off the reservation. #2 is a strong possibility as well; it would not be the first time that The United States has played crazy to deter actions from other nations. By saying two different things, the White House commo and Biden could be working in concert to discourage China from continuing their flexing of military muscle around the archipelago. I’m going with #2, because I am sure that if Biden is at cross purposes with actual policy, he has been spoken to by advisors and probably would not do it again.
But he keeps doing it. So I’m inclined to believe we are just up to our old unpredictability strategy. It seems to work pretty well, so I’m not totally alarmed by what appears to be a communication foul-up. Republican hawks don’t seem to be in the know on this, because Adam Kinzinger had a shit-fit on Twitter ranting that the Biden administration should fire everyone who is walking his statements back.
So someone needs to read The Taiwan Relations Act, and I’m not sure if it’s Joe Biden. Because we do not have a defense treaty with them; we do provide arms for self defense but we have never written anything that says unconditionally we go to war with mainland China if they fuck with Taiwan. Not since 1980, at least.
Little noticed is an economic accord Biden signed on his visit to Japan, with multiple Asian nations signing on. One of them is NOT Taiwan. So there’s a limit to what we are going to do for them that would upset the Communists. I think Biden is simply putting them on notice that they should remain non-expansionist, unlike their neighbor to the north- because they just don’t know what the senile hawk in the Oval Office could do next to keep the world order as it is.