by J. Pharoah Doss, For New Pittsburgh Courier
At a recent summit with leaders from Japan, India, and Australia, President Joe Biden told a reporter the United States would militarily defend Taiwan if China invaded the island. The reporter sought an explanation since the United States refused to counter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with conventional forces.
Biden reminded the reporter the United States made a commitment to Taiwan.
International media correspondents wondered if Biden ended decades of U.S. strategic ambiguity, which is a policy designed to keep China uncertain of America’s military commitment to Taiwan’s defense. While other media correspondents wondered if Biden misspoke, leaving his handlers to clarify America’s actual position on Taiwan.
Is the United States committed to Taiwan’s defense, or is strategic ambiguity the official policy?
In 1950 U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson told the press South Korea and Taiwan were outside of the defense perimeter of the United States. North Korea immediately invaded South Korea and China accelerated its plans to invade Taiwan.
After learning of North Korea’s invasion, President Harry Truman made it clear the United States would defend both South Korea and Taiwan.
Truman ordered the navy to the Taiwan Strait to conduct a “show of force” that was visible to the Chinese government. At that time, the United States did not recognize the new revolutionary communist regime that overthrew the Nationalist Chinese government the year before. The leaders of the Nationalist Chinese government fled to Taiwan, and the United States recognized the nationalists and not the communist revolutionaries.
President Truman had no need for “strategic ambiguity” on the grounds that he confronted an upstart regime that wasn’t the legitimate government of China, and the United States had a vital interest in preventing the spread of communism.
In 1955 a mutual defense treaty between the United States and Taiwan was signed. This treaty obligated the United States to militarily defend Taiwan from Chinese aggression.
By the 1970s, China decided to reform its dilapidated economy with market mechanisms, and American businesses were interested in access to new markets in China. As a result, President Jimmy Carter formally recognized communist China and severed ties with Taiwan.
Incensed members of Congress led by Senator Barry Goldwater insisted the president had no authority to unilaterally nullify the 1955 defense treaty, and the president needed approval from the Senate. Goldwater took this constitutional breach to the Supreme Court, but the case was dismissed as non-justiciable.
To salvage the situation, Congress passed the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.
Under this act, the United States no longer guaranteed military intervention if China attacked Taiwan, but the United States was required to provide Taiwan with defensive arms. In the future, the actual means by which the United States was willing to defend Taiwan from China was to be determined by each sitting president and Congress after careful evaluation of vital interests in the region.
This established the policy of strategic ambiguity.
By the 1990s the Cold War was over, and alliances were being rearranged, but when tension flared between Taiwan and China, President Bill Clinton imitated President Truman by sending the navy to the Taiwan Strait, and China backed down. At the turn of the century, President George W. Bush abandoned strategic ambiguity for what his critics called “strategic clarity”. Bush bluntly told China the United States would do whatever was necessary to defend Taiwan from attack.
History reveals that the sitting president can choose to be strategically ambiguous or strategically clear, and Biden chose clarity. However, making a promise to defend isn’t the same thing as having the will to defend.
It’s clear at this moment in history that the United States doesn’t have the will.
That’s why President Biden should have remained ambiguous.
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