Biden Forgets ‘Words Matter’ On Taiwan

Markets looked poised to stabilize Monday, amid a lack of new downside catalysts.

There’s plenty to fret over, and this week’s tape could be littered with landmines, but the new week dawned without a fresh crisis.

Unless you count a provocative series of remarks by Joe Biden who, during a press event with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, asked, “If these sanctions [on Russia] are not sustained… then what signal does that send to China about the cost of attempting to take Taiwan by force?”

Thus prompted, the media responded accordingly. “You didn’t want to get involved militarily in the Ukraine conflict for obvious reasons. Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?” an inquisitive reporter wondered.

“Yes,” Biden responded, without hesitation.

“You are?” the incredulous reporter half said, half asked.

Biden took an awkward pause, nodded in the affirmative and turned away from the reporter. “That’s the commitment we made.” Then, again, only faster and with less conviction: “That’s the commitment we made.”

But that’s not “the commitment” the US “made.” In fact, the US deliberately makes no commitments regarding Taiwan, or at least not publicly. America is deliberately noncommittal. Whatever “strategic ambiguity” means, it doesn’t mean unambiguous public commitments of military support.

On one hand, no one should be surprised when Joe Biden “misspeaks” or otherwise meanders into gaffes. Contrary to what you might be inclined to believe if you ever stumble into America’s far-right, social media echo chamber, gaffes aren’t necessarily indicative of cognitive decline vis-à-vis Biden. Gaffes are Biden’s thing. It’s always been that way.

On the other hand, Biden does this for a living, so to speak. He’s a career politician. He’s not just playing one on TV for a season. So, when he suggests, unintentionally or otherwise, that the US would send troops, ships and aircraft to Taiwan to confront the PLA in the event of an invasion, people take it seriously. More seriously than they would if, for example, someone who isn’t a career politician suggested that instead of sanctions, the US should paint Chinese flags on F-22s and “bomb the s–t out of Russia” in retaliation for Vladimir Putin’s war.

More importantly, Biden has committed this particular gaffe so many times since taking office that one has to wonder if America’s stance on Taiwan actually has changed, or is at least evolving.

“Look, here’s the situation,” he continued, on Monday. “We agree with the ‘One China’ policy. We signed onto it and all the attendant agreements. But the idea that [Taiwan] can be taken by force — just taken by force — is just not — it’s just not appropriate.”

Biden is on his first trip to Asia as president, and discussing China with America’s allies in the region is at the top of the agenda. Reiterating America’s commitment to supporting “peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait” (the boilerplate line preferred by the State Department) was obligatory. And, one more time: Biden is prone to gaffes. In that context, Monday’s remarks weren’t terribly surprising.

But consider this: Biden understands the importance of nuance as it relates to this particular geopolitical flashpoint. In fact, he arguably understands it better than almost anyone in Washington, including military officials.

“He is one of the very few political figures who have been around Washington so long that he voted for [the Taiwan Relations Act] in 1979,” The New York Times wrote, on one of the other four occasions when Biden suggested the US would use force to defend the island. “As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he traveled to Taiwan and understood the nuances of the wording.”

On May 2, 2001, Biden wrote an Op-Ed for The Washington Post, in which he criticized then-President George W. Bush for failing to observe the same decorum he (Biden) has broken on multiple occasions since taking office.

In the Op-Ed, Biden described an exchange between Bush and an interviewer that was nearly identical to the exchange Biden had in Tokyo on Monday. In response to a query about whether the US had an obligation to defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression, Bush said, “Yes, we do, and the Chinese must understand that. Yes, I would.” The interviewer pressed Bush: “With the full force of the American military?” Bush responded: “Whatever it took.”

Biden, writing in 2001, said Bush’s remarks were tantamount to a “startling new commitment,” and noted that Bush “appeared to back off a few hours later,” when he paid lip service to the “One China” policy. So, exactly what Biden did on Monday, only his about-face played out in the space of a few seconds rather than a few hours.

In the same Op-Ed, Biden wrote that,

As a matter of diplomacy, there is a huge difference between reserving the right to use force and obligating ourselves, a priori, to come to the defense of Taiwan. The president should not cede to Taiwan, much less to China, the ability automatically to draw us into a war across the Taiwan Strait. Moreover, to make good on the president’s pledge, we would almost certainly want to use our bases on Okinawa, Japan. But there is no evidence the president has consulted with Japan.

Again: Biden was speaking Monday from Japan, at a press conference with Fumio Kishida.

Given the number of times Biden has seemingly committed the same faux pas he castigated Bush for committing two decades ago, and considering Beijing’s aggressive posturing, it’s fair to ask if the US might be in the process of reconsidering “strategic ambiguity.”

From the onset of the war in Ukraine, “geopolitical strategists” (with the scare quotes there to denote that “geopolitical strategist” isn’t really a thing, like “China watchers” isn’t really a thing) warned that China would view the conflict as a kind of proof of concept: Is it, or is it not, feasible to stage a war of conquest in the 21st century?

Of course, China would surely claim Ukraine and Taiwan is a false equivalence. But note that Putin essentially denies Ukraine’s statehood. So, is it really a false equivalence?

In the 2001 Op-Ed, Biden warned that Bush’s “inattention to detail has damaged US credibility with our allies and sown confusion throughout the Pacific Rim.” “Words matter,” he said.