Joe Biden has only said about Taiwan what the whole world already knows

President Joe Biden's decision to state categorically that the United States will intervene militarily should China attack Taiwan, as it did during Monday's joint press conference in Tokyo with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, has sparked outrage in Beijing and much upset by many, even most, of those responsible for US foreign policy, including many supporters of the president both outside and inside the Administration.

One fact that demonstrates this was that, a few hours after Biden's statements, the State Department was, as they euphemistically say in Washington, "retracting" the president's comments and insisting that the United States' policy regarding Taiwan it had changed.

The problem is that this policy, which dates back to 1979, the year in which the United States decided to recognize the People's Republic of China (PRC) as the "sole legal government of China" and stop recognizing the Republic of China - that is, Taiwan—was totally incoherent and contradictory when it was agreed upon and it is even more so today, if possible.

On the one hand, the United States accepted and continues to accept Beijing's view that Taiwan is not, as the island claims, a separate sovereign entity.

But on the other hand, Washington has never accepted the People's Republic's declaration that Taiwan is part of China.

This contradiction appears already in the Sino-American joint communiqué of December 1978,

To add insult to injury, shortly after the United States closed its embassy in Taiwan and Washington and Beijing exchanged ambassadors, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, which establishes that US ties with the PRC are based "on the expectation that Taiwan's future will be determined by peaceful means,” something Beijing did not commit to then and has not since.

The United States also pledged to provide Taiwan with "weapons of a defensive nature" and to "maintain the ability of the United States to deal with any use of force [by Beijing] or other forms of coercion that endanger security." or the social or economic system of the people of Taiwan.”

In Washington, this US stance is called "strategic ambiguity."

This term can be applied to Israel's policy of not acknowledging that it has an arsenal of nuclear weapons that it could use if it felt its existence threatened by its enemies (read Iran).

But it doesn't make sense in the case of Taiwan.

In any case, a more appropriate term would be "self-destructive contradiction."

The United States does not recognize Taiwan but will defend it (without specifying the means), and provides Taiwan with the military means to defend itself... but only with "defensive weapons", which in military terms is not only ambiguous but meaningless, since that surely even nuclear weapons could be classified as defensive weapons (to the extent that the doctrine of mutually assured destruction is accepted).

In reality, Washington's policy of strategic ambiguity has only worked, and can only work, if China is not serious about reconquering its renegade province (as it sees it) by force.

At the time of mutual recognition between the US and the PRC, China was too weak to do so.

When the Chinese adopted

(although, of course, not

) and became (authoritarian) capitalists, during the Deng Xiaoping era, and rose to become the world's workshop and the second largest economy, it perhaps seemed reasonable to assume that the more China became incorporated into the global system—a a process that lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty—the less likely it was to put it all in jeopardy with war.

This, of course, was the same logic behind the widely held view that when China regained Hong Kong, it would honor its commitments to allow the city to function under more democratic rules.

The argument was that allowing the financial center to be governed by different rules than the rest of the PRC was in the best interest of Beijing's economic interests and political reputation.

But that hope was dashed with the 2020 imposition of harsh national security laws and the crackdown on the democracy movement that followed.

When China speaks of “one China”, it is clear that it means precisely that: one China with one system.

As far as Taiwan is concerned, there is no longer any talk of the hope that China might allow a

reunification , as it did at first in Hong Kong, and let the island retain its democratic identity and some degree of autonomy.

The only questions are whether, as some believe, China will end up trying to take over the island by force and whether the saber rattling of the last two years - military planes invading Taiwanese airspace, naval exercises that seem to simulate what the Chinese navy if it were to support the invasion—should be considered a sign of impending war.

President Biden already hardened his pro-Taiwan stance last August, when he promised the United States would come to its aid if it came under attack, causing the same consternation and confusion at the State Department as his statement this week.

But it is clear that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has further reinforced this trend.

He said so at the Tokyo press conference, when he stated that the events in Ukraine had made the United States' responsibility for the defense of Taiwan "even greater."

Biden clearly believes there is a danger that Russia's offensive will encourage the Chinese to launch their own invasion.

It's impossible to know if he's right, though many who dismiss those fears also dismissed Biden's predictions before Moscow attacked Ukraine.

Another theory holds that Biden's alarm is misplaced, not because the Russian attack did not initially embolden Beijing, but because the unexpectedly strong resistance to Russian forces has served as a warning to Chinese strategists.

Those who defend this opinion say that an invasion would be very expensive for a Chinese Army that does not have even a minimal part of the combat experience that the Russian forces have, and remember that the last war in which the Chinese participated was the one they waged against Vietnam. in 1979,

The fundamental problem for Washington is that the doctrine of strategic ambiguity developed in the late 1970s appears to be long past its expiration date.

This is what Biden has understood, even if his State Department has not.

China is now different: more self-confident, more uncompromising, and probably more militarily competent.

And Taiwan is very different, having become an exemplary democracy at a time when democracy seems to be in decline almost everywhere (even in the United States, in my opinion).

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to think that the possibility of China taking similar action is remote seems the height of self-delusion.

If the so-called "long peace" after World War II ever came true,

In reality, it is secondary to the question of whether or not Biden was wise to say publicly and categorically something that everyone, both in Beijing and in Washington, knows perfectly well: that the doctrine of strategic ambiguity is as useless as the Line Maginot.

Beijing may feign outrage, but it understands very well that, Ukraine notwithstanding, the United States continues to shift its military center of gravity away from the Middle East and Europe and closer to the Pacific, and is cementing or strengthening military relations with Australia through the agreement. Aukus, with South Korea and, most important of all, with a Japanese Government that seems to have the will and the political support necessary to modify its Basic Law and seriously increase its military power - with the recently announced increase in the defense budget,

Surely it is this, and not Biden's rhetorical flourishes, that Americans must try to reflect on and come to terms with.

Is China the main military threat to the United States and its Asian allies?

If so, how can that threat be met, and how far should the United States be willing to go?

To the point of going to war with China to defend Taiwan?

Or should he withdraw, hope that the

and try all possible diplomatic means, but, should China invade, acknowledge that he can do nothing?

If the latter is truly the option that Americans prefer, then it is hard to see what sense it makes to continue maintaining the huge military apparatus that the United States has today.

But it seems very unlikely that this will be the option that Washington takes;

in fact, all the indicators point in the opposite direction.

For the United States to abandon Taiwan to its fate would, in effect, be to say that US military guarantees are worthless.

And there is also an ideological dimension: that of the legitimacy of US power.

A realist and, of course, an anti-imperialist would say that legitimacy is false from the start.

But even proponents of the contrary view will be hard-pressed to defend the legitimacy of US power if it is not used to defend Taiwan.

Because if that democracy is not worth defending by force of arms, what country is worth defending?

This is, in my opinion, the debate that we should have.

David Rieff

is a journalist and writer.

One of his books is

(Debate).

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