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President Joe Biden said the United States would be willing to intervene to protect Taiwan if China attacked it.
At a news conference in Tokyo, President Biden was asked if the United States was willing to “intervene militarily to defend Taiwan,” given that Washington was unwilling to do so after the Russian aggression in Ukraine.
“Yes. “This is a commitment we have made.”
This is President Biden’s apparent ‘last move’ from the “strategic ambiguity” approach that US presidents have long embraced when it comes to a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
China’s foreign ministry responded quickly, saying Beijing had no room for compromise or concessions on issues related to its sovereignty.
President Biden made similar comments in October. In both cases, White House officials were quick to clarify his comments.
“As the president said, our policy has not changed. “He reiterated our ‘one China’ policy and our commitment to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” a White House official said Monday.
However, the US official did not back down from President Biden’s comments to defend Taiwan.
China, a one-party authoritarian state, sees democratic Taiwan as a breakaway province and has long pledged to retake it, by force if necessary. In recent years, Beijing has developed a growing number of military aircraft flights near the island.
In Tokyo, President Biden said China was “flirting with danger” but did not expect it to use force to try to seize Taiwan, especially if the world opposed Russian occupation of Ukraine.
“Much depends on how strongly the world makes it clear that this kind of action will lead to long-term disapproval,” said President Biden.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who spoke with President Biden, gave a less direct answer to the question of whether Japan would intervene militarily to protect Taiwan.
However, Prime Minister Kishida said that “unilateral efforts to change the status quo by force, as in Ukraine, should never be tolerated in the Indo-Pacific.”
Prime Minister Kishida said he and President Biden stressed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
Japan has been one of the world’s most outspoken critics of Russian aggression in Ukraine. President Biden and Prime Minister Kishida condemned that aggression in their public comments Monday.
“This is not a European issue. “This has global implications, including security issues in East Asia and the Indo-Pacific,” Noriyuki Shikata, Japan’s public affairs secretary in the cabinet, told VOA.
During the meeting, Prime Minister Kishida also said that President Biden supported Japan’s recent efforts to “substantially strengthen its defense capabilities.”
President Biden is in the midst of a three-day visit to Japan, following a stop in South Korea.
At an event in Tokyo on Monday, President Biden unveiled the initiative of the “Indo-Pacific Economic Framework”, or IPEF, which aims to demonstrate the economic commitment of the United States in Asia./Voa
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