May 24, 2022

Biden’s Taiwan Blunder

It’s another clean-up on Aisle 46 for our oft-confused commander-in-chief.

So much for strategic ambiguity.

For decades, U.S. policy toward the China-Taiwan dispute has been to keep from tipping our hand, thereby keeping both our geopolitical foes and friends guessing. That ended yesterday — at least temporarily — at a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, when a reporter asked Joe Biden if the U.S. would defend Taiwan if it were attacked by China.

“Yes,” replied the cognitively addled American president.

To which the obviously stunned journalist followed up, “You are?”

To which Biden, um, elaborated: “Look, here’s the situation: We agree with the One China policy; we’ve signed on to it and all the attendant agreements made from there. But the idea that — that it can be taken by force — just taken by force — is just not a — is just not appropriate. It will dislocate the entire region and be another action similar to what happened in — in Ukraine. And so, it’s a burden that is even stronger.”

In fact, under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. is committed to arming the island nation to defend itself but is unclear about whether American forces would join the fight — thus, strategic ambiguity.

We’ll say this about Joe Biden, though: His cringeworthy adventures off-script certainly keep his people on their toes. In this case, as soon as that initial monosyllabic utterance left his lips, the Aisle 46 clean-up crew sprang into action. Not even the lickspittles at The New York Times could man the mops quickly enough. As Peter Baker writes:

Each time he says what he really thinks, there is the ritual cleanup brigade dispatched by the White House to pretend that he did not really say what he clearly articulated — or that even if he did, it did not really amount to a change in policy. But then Mr. Biden, unperturbed and unapologetic, goes out and does it all over again.

His remarks on Taiwan on Monday were just the latest instance of a president saying out loud what is on his mind even if it leaves his staff scrambling to spin it away afterward. In March, he called President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a war criminal (just his opinion, not a legal conclusion, aides quickly explained). Then days later, he ad-libbed at the end of a speech that Mr. Putin “cannot remain in power” (just an observation, they said, not a call for regime change).

Of course, it’s possible that ol’ Scranton Joe is playing 4D chess while Xi Jinping is playing Chinese checkers. It’s possible that by appearing to be unambiguous about our intention to defend Taiwan, Team Biden was actually being ambiguous. Think about it: No one believes a word that comes out of this president’s mouth, and this is especially true when the situation calls for a degree of sophistication beyond a simple yes-or-no answer.

“Yes,” for example, is a great response when asked whether you want cream with your coffee. It’s rather less great when you’re threatening a hot war with a nuclear-armed superpower. China, after all, has long considered Taiwan a “breakaway province” and has long vowed to retake it by force if necessary. Complicating matters is that Taiwan considers itself to be a sovereign state, just as any other island entity might — especially one that has its own constitution, democratically elected leaders, a powerful tech and manufacturing economy, more than 23 million citizens, and about 300,000 active troops in its armed forces.

“This is amateur hour at 1600 Pennsylvania,” said China expert Gordon Chang, “and this actually has real-world consequences, largely because the Chinese will look at this and say that the administration is incapable and irresolute. Now, Biden was very clear a couple of days ago when he said, look, the United States will defend Taiwan. … There was no ambiguity about that, and now under pressure … you have his subordinates contradicting him. … And it’s bad not with regard to Taiwan only [but] all our defense commitments around the world.”

Meanwhile, a nervous world awaits Joe Biden’s next blunder.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.