Without breaking the traditional American “strategic ambiguity” on the Taiwanese file, the occupant of the White House made strong remarks during a television interview. He also remained ambiguous on a possible second mandate.
Le Monde with AFP
During a television interview broadcast on the evening of Sunday September 18 on the CBS channel, American president Joe Biden said that American troops would defend Taiwan in the event of Chinese invasion. Solicited by the agency France-Presse (AFP), a spokesperson for the White House, however, said Sunday evening that the policy of the United States with regard to Taiwan has not changed “.
The question of whether “Americans would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion”, the American leader replied: “Yes, if an unprecedented attack came to occur”. However, he wanted to emphasize that he was not there “to encourage” the island to declare its independence. “This is their decision,” he said.
China estimates that Taiwan, populated by some 23 million inhabitants, is one of its provinces, which she has not yet managed to combine with the rest of her territory since the end of the war Chinese in 1949. In seven decades, the Communist army could never conquer the island, which remained under the control of the Republic of China – the regime which once governed continental China and only governs today Taiwan.
Joe Biden had already provoked Beijing’s anger in late May that the United States would intervene militarily to support Taiwan in the event of an invasion by Communist China. He had then returned back, affirming his attachment to “strategic ambiguity”, a deliberately vague concept that has ruled the Taiwanese policy of the United States for decades.
very strong tensions with China
Consistant for Washington to refrain from saying whether the United States would intervene or not militarily to defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion, “strategic ambiguity” has so far maintained a certain stability in the region. Washington also applies a “single China policy”: the United States officially recognizes only one Chinese government, that of Beijing.
But, at the same time, they are careful not to approve the position of Beijing according to which Taiwan is an inalienable part of the single China which will be reunified one day. The United States believes that it is in Beijing and Taipei to find a solution, but oppose any use of force to change the status quo. “We agree with what we signed a long time ago,” said Joe Biden during his interview.
His words, however, come after a significant rapprochement between the United States and Taiwan, at a time when relations between Beijing and Washington have been at their lowest for decades. On Wednesday, a bill which forecasts first direct military aid in the United States in Taiwan has taken a key stage to the US Congress. A few days earlier, Washington had announced the sale for $ 1.1 billion in weapons in Taipei. At the beginning of August, a visit to Taiwan of the president of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, also caused the fury of Beijing. China then launched the most important military maneuvers in its history around the island. 2>
ambiguity on a second candidacy in 2024
During the same interview, the American president also whistled the official end of the pandemic. “[She] is over, we still have a problem with the COVVI, we devote a lot of work to this file … But the pandemic is over,” he told CBS. “If you look around, nobody carries a mask, and everyone looks in a rather good shape,” he said. “So I think it’s changing.”
Finally, he left doubt about his possible candidacy in 2024, for a second term. “My intention, as I said at the start, is to represent myself,” he said, before adding: “But this is only an intention”, not a “firm decision”.
The oldest president ever elected in the United States, Joe Biden will celebrate his 80th birthday on November 20. He would be 82 at the start of a possible second term, and 86 years old at the end. Since his election in November 2020, the president has however projected himself multiple times until the 2024 election, indicating that he would again choose his current vice-president, Kamala Harris, to be his package.