During a meeting with voters in Baltimore organized by CNN, Biden was asked if the United States would be prepared to defend Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese attack, and he replied, “Yes. We have an obligation to do so.”
Although the United States and China, the two nuclear powers and the primary economic powers in the world, are fighting a cold war in a number of contentious issues between them, their dispute over Taiwan is the only issue that is likely to provoke an armed confrontation between them.
On Wednesday, veteran US diplomat Nicholas Burns told a Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing to consider his confirmation as US ambassador to Beijing that China should not be “trusted” with regard to Taiwan.
During the session, Burns stressed the need for the United States to sell more weapons to Taiwan to bolster the island’s defenses against China.
The US diplomat also denounced the recent Chinese incursions into the Taiwan Air Defense Determination Zone, stressing that what Beijing is doing in this regard is “reprehensible.”
Last March, the commander of US forces in the Indo-Pacific region, Admiral Philip Davidson, warned that China could invade Taiwan within six years to achieve its stated goal of displacing the United States as the largest military power in the region.
Taiwan, with a population of about 23 million people, has been run for 75 years by a regime that sought refuge on the island after the Communists took control of mainland China during the Chinese Civil War.
The United States severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979 to recognize Beijing as the official and sole representative of China, but Washington remains Taiwan’s strongest ally and its number one supplier of arms. In fact, the US administration is obligated by Congress to sell the island weapons to enable it to defend itself.
Beijing considers Taiwan an integral part of Chinese territory, stressing that sooner or later it will recover the island, and by force if necessary.
But Chinese President Xi Jinping recently reiterated his desire for the island’s reunification with mainland China to take place “peacefully.”
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