He compares the situation on the island with the war in Ukraine and doubles his diplomatic and military efforts to contain the rise of Beijing
In his first tour of Asia as president of the United States, Joe Biden has taken advantage of the West’s union against Russia over the war in Ukraine to launch a serious warning to China on Monday. Comparing the situation, he has promised to militarily defend the island of Taiwan if the Beijing regime invades it, as he is feared for his frequent calls for reunification.
Responding to journalists after his meeting in Tokyo with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Biden has been blunt. “Yes, that is the commitment we have,” he replied when asked if he would get involved militarily in the event that China attacked Taiwan, according to the Japanese Kyodo agency. “We support the ‘one China policy,’ but that does not mean that Beijing has jurisdiction to take Taiwan by force. We firmly join Japan and other countries in preventing this from happening. I hope that does not happen, that it is not even tried. It all depends on how clear the world is showing the long-term disapproval that such an action would have, “warned Biden, whose words were immediately criticized in Beijing.
“Taiwan is an inseparable part of China and it is a purely internal matter,” rejected one of the Foreign Ministry spokesmen, Wang Wenbin, who also sent a message to the White House. “Be careful with his words and refrain from sending the wrong signals to the separatist forces that want Taiwan independence,” he gravely warned in his daily media appearance.
For Biden, Beijing is “flirting with danger by flying so close and with all the maneuvers it carries out,” he denounced, referring to the frequent incursions of Chinese planes into the Taiwan Air Defense Identification Zone.
It is not the first time that Biden has unnerved Beijing with his comments, since in October he indicated that the US would intervene if China attacked the island. As on that occasion, the White House hastened to qualify his statements by assuring that its policy in this regard has not changed. Specifically, the American position. it is based on a calculated ‘strategic ambiguity’. Although Washington exchanged its diplomatic ties with Taipei for Beijing in 1979, the Taiwan Relations Act allows it to provide weapons to defend itself, but without detailing a military intervention.
arms sales
In fact, Taipei is one of the largest buyers of US arms and its orders have increased in the face of the growing threat from China. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which took place after Putin strengthened his alliance with President Xi Jinping at the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, many experts believe that China could carry out a similar offensive on Taiwan. . In his attempt to go down in history as the most powerful leader in China after Mao, Xi aspires to perpetuate himself in office and be the “hero” who reunites the “rebellious island”. But surely Putin’s failure and Western sanctions against Russia must have tempered his spirits.
Trying to stop China’s diplomatic and commercial expansion in Asia, Biden has also announced the creation of an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework that includes the US and eleven other countries: Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore. , Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei. On the military front, Biden is chairing today in Tokyo a summit of the Quad, a security alliance with Japan, India and Australia that also has China in its sights.
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