Biden leaves no doubt: ‘Strategic ambiguity’ toward Taiwan is dead

President Joe Biden has further stoked U.S.-China tensions by unambiguously pledging a U.S. military response if China tries to invade Taiwan.

The U.S. military would defend Taiwan “if in fact there was an unprecedented attack” on the self-governing island, Biden said in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

Biden didn’t define what an “unprecedented” attack on Taiwan would look like, but his comments marked the fourth time since August 2021 that he has stated that the U.S. would militarily defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion attempt. And in every case, aides have walked back comments that appear to reverse the longtime policy of “strategic ambiguity” regarding U.S. willingness to defend Taiwan.

Biden’s assertion reflects his administration’s recognition that the U.S. must apply a more robust deterrence to Beijing given its worsening military intimidation of Taiwan. That harassment is rooted in China’s concerns that the island is on an irreversible course toward independence.

“I think we can all be pretty certain at this point that it was not a gaffe — four times in a row … [means] what’s happening is there are people in the administration who think that by demonstrating a greater willingness to defend Taiwan, that’ll help reestablish deterrence,” said Oriana Skylar Mastro, center fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Biden’s pledge of U.S. military defense of Taiwan breaks new ground in his administration’s willingness to take a more uncompromising approach to the possibility of Chinese aggression. And it reflects deepening concerns about Beijing’s intentions following the live-fire military drills it launched around the island after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s contentious Taiwan visit last month, as well as ongoing violations by Chinese military aircraft of the median line between Taiwan and China.

“No previous president has chosen to prejudge the decision that he will take in the event of a hypothetical Chinese military action,” Daniel Russel, former assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs and vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told POLITICO. “[It] doesn’t really have the hallmark of an off-the-cuff remark — this was a sit-down interview in which it seemed the White House would have understood that this topic would be certainly fair game and one would have expected to prepare the president for the answer that he wanted to give.”