Biden signaling Taiwan defense

He implies he’d use military to back China-claimed isle

TOKYO — President Joe Biden signaled on Monday that he would use military force to defend Taiwan if it were ever attacked by China, dispensing with the “strategic ambiguity” traditionally favored by American presidents, and risking Beijing’s anger at a time of rising tensions in the region.

At a news conference during a visit to Japan, Biden suggested that he would be willing to go further on behalf of Taiwan than he has in helping Ukraine, where he has provided tens of billions of dollars in weapons as well as intelligence assistance to help defeat Russian invaders but has refused to send U.S. troops.

“You didn’t want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons,” a reporter said to Biden. “Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?”

“Yes,” Biden answered flatly.

“You are?” the reporter followed up.

“That’s the commitment we made,” he said.

The president’s declaration, offered without caveat or clarification, set the stage for fresh tensions between the United States and China, which insists that Taiwan is a part of its territory and cannot exist as a sovereign nation.

The United States has historically warned China against using force against Taiwan while generally remaining vague about how far it would go to aid the island in such a circumstance.

The White House quickly tried to deny that the president meant what he seemed to be saying.

“As the president said, our policy has not changed,” the White House said in a statement hurriedly sent to reporters. “He reiterated our One China Policy and our commitment to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. He also reiterated our commitment under the Taiwan Relations Act to provide Taiwan with the military means to defend itself.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sounded the same themes when asked by reporters back in Washington.

“I think the president was clear on the fact that the policy has not changed,” he said.

But Biden’s comments went beyond simply reiterating that the United States would provide Taiwan with arms, because the question was posed as a contrast to what he had done with Ukraine.

In fact, he repeated the notion that he was committed to doing more than what he had done for Ukraine.

“The idea that it can be taken by force, just taken by force, is just not appropriate,” he said of Taiwan. “It would dislocate the entire region and be another action similar to what happened in Ukraine. And so it’s a burden that is even stronger.”

Neither Biden nor anyone in his administration elaborated on what specifically would be entailed by getting “militarily involved” and the president did not respond to questions at a later event asking for more detail. But he left

Neither Biden nor anyone in his administration elaborated on what specifically would be entailed by getting “militarily involved” and the president did not respond to questions at a later event asking for more detail.

the clear impression that he meant that U.S. forces would be deployed for Taiwan in some fashion.

“President Biden seems to have staked out a new position somewhere between ‘strategic clarity’ and ‘strategic ambiguity,’” said Danny Russel, vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute and a former adviser to President Barack Obama. “He’s clear about his belief that the U.S. should respond in the event of Chinese military aggression against Taiwan. But he’s ambiguous about what exactly that means and what it is based on.”

As president, Biden has ignored before the practiced imprecision of his predecessors with regard to China and Taiwan. Last August, in reassuring allies after his decision to abandon the government of Afghanistan, he promised that “we would respond” if there was an attack against a fellow member of NATO and then added, “same with Japan, same with South Korea, same with Taiwan.”

Taiwan, however, has never been granted the same U.S. security guarantees as Japan, South Korea or America’s NATO allies, and so the comment was seen as significant. Two months later, Biden was asked during a televised town hall if the United States would protect Taiwan from attack.

“Yes, we have a commitment to do that,” he said. That also set off a frantic scramble by the White House to walk back his remark by insisting that he was not changing long-standing policy.

War in Taiwan does not appear to be imminent, and Biden said “my expectation is it will not happen.” But China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has taken a more aggressive stance than his predecessors, who long vowed to bring the island under their control, viewing the issue as the unfinished business of a bloody civil war waged more than 70 years ago.

LESSONS FROM UKRAINE

For many in Taiwan, China’s authoritarian turn under Xi, and its moves to crush pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, have made any deeper political ties to the country unpalatable.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has heightened urgency in Washington, where officials are reexamining Taiwan’s defensive capabilities to ensure it could fight off an invasion.

The war has been watched closely in Asia, too, for whatever lessons it would hold for China’s intentions toward Taiwan. If Russia had succeeded in conquering Ukraine, once part of its empire, some feared it would set a dangerous precedent. Yet Russia’s failure to take over the entire country and the unified Western response may serve as a red flag to military adventurism.

China sent 14 aircraft into the island’s air defense zone last week on the day that Biden arrived in Asia, according to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, part of a pattern of increasing incursions over the past year. Taiwan scrambled fighter jets in response, but no direct conflict was reported.

Taiwanese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou said her agency “sincerely welcomed” Biden’s comments, but the Chinese ministry’s spokesman Wang Wenbin expressed his government’s “strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition” to them. Beijing claims Taiwan is an inalienable part of its territory.

“No one should underestimate the strong determination, firm will and formidable ability of the Chinese people,” Wang said at a regular news briefing, according to the state-run Global Times.

“On issues concerning China’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and other core interests, China has no room for compromise,” Wang also told reporters.

Biden’s comments came barely an hour before he formally unveiled a new 13-nation Indo-Pacific Economic Framework intended to serve as a counter to Chinese influence in the region.

The administration says it improves on the political and substantive shortcomings of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, negotiated during the Obama administration when Biden was vice president.

The dozen countries in the new pact with the United States are Australia, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The countries account for 40% of global gross domestic product, according to the administration.

“It is by any account the most significant international economic engagement that the United States has ever had in this region,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said.

SUPPORT FROM JAPAN

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan, who joined Biden for the earlier news conference, expressed concern about a Ukraine-style conflict over Taiwan. Any “unilateral attempt to change the status quo by force like Russia’s aggression against Ukraine this time should never be tolerated in the Indo-Pacific,” he said.

Nonetheless, he stuck to the traditional policy and maintained before the president’s comments that U.S.-Japan policy on the island was still the same.

“Our two countries’ basic position on Taiwan remains unchanged,” he said.

Japan has adopted a more proactive foreign policy since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which triggered a deep alarm that has accelerated Japan’s ongoing debate over defense and security policies amid China’s growing territorial threat.

The world’s third-largest economy, Japan has taken uncharacteristically swift steps to join Western allies in financially pressuring Russia and aiding Ukraine. Last week, Tokyo committed an additional $300 million in short-term support to Ukraine, on top of the more than $200 million it had already pledged. Japan accepted more than 1,000 people fleeing Ukraine.

Biden’s unscripted declaration put Japan in a complicated position. With Taiwan just 65 miles from Yonaguni, the westernmost inhabited Japanese island, a war with China carries enormous potential consequences for Japan, which has disavowed armed conflict since its defeat in World War II.

“Certainly, Mr. Biden said ‘America is in,’” said Narushige Michishita, vice president of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. “That means Japan will be in, too.”

While Kishida would not be so blunt as Biden, he added, his administration aims to increase Japan’s defense budget, while discussing plans to acquire weapons capable of striking missile launch sites in enemy territory and to conduct more exercises with American forces.

“Chinese planners must take the possibility of Japan getting involved into account when they plan and when they decide whether or not to attack Taiwan,” Michishita said. Forcing China to consider the prospect of facing U.S. and Japanese forces, he said, would ultimately “enhance the possibility of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

Kishida repeatedly stressed Japan’s wish for the United States to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Meanwhile, many Asia-Pacific countries are already participating in a free-trade agreement involving China, called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

The framework released by the White House and the dozen other countries Monday does not include specific commitments or requirements of what each nation has to do to reap the benefits of the pact.

The administration has also faced questions about why Taiwan was excluded from the initial list of participating countries. Last week, a bipartisan majority of 52 senators wrote to Biden, pressing him to ensure the self-governing island and U.S. trading partner was a part of the new framework and said doing so was an economic and military imperative.

Excluding Taiwan “would significantly distort the regional and global economic architecture, run counter to U.S. economic interests, and allow the Chinese government to claim that the international community does not in fact support meaningful engagement with Taiwan,” stated the letter, which was written by the two leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the administration will pursue “deeper” bilateral trade relations with Taiwan rather than including it in today’s framework because doing so “puts us in the best position for us to be able to enhance our economic partnership with Taiwan and also to carry IPEF forward with this diverse range of countries.”

Market access — lowering the barrier for trade activity with the United States — was an important incentive to persuade Southeast Asian countries to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., the U.S. ambassador to Japan under the Trump administration, also pointed to the lack of provisions in the new trade framework to boost market access, even as allies in the region are “eager to see more U.S. economic leadership.”

On Biden’s final day of his Asia trip, he is scheduled today to spend much of the day meeting with other leaders from the Quad nations.

The four democracies share security and economic interests, but the grouping exists for reasons that mirror the purpose of Biden’s first Asia trip as president: to counter China’s growing military and economic might.

Speaking shortly after he was sworn in as Australia’s 31st prime minister, Anthony Albanese, who will participate in the Quad summit, said the meeting will send a message of “continuity in the way that we have respect for democracy and the way that we value our friendships and long-term alliances.”

Information for this article was contributed by Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Peter Baker of The New York Times and by Seung Min Kim, Michelle Ye Hee Lee, Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Julia Mio Inuma, Lily Kuo, Michael E. Miller in Sydney and Karoun Demirjian of The Washington Post.