Does Old Joe Biden, having destroyed the American economy and severely threatened national security by essentially erasing the Southern border, want to get us into World War III, or is he just an elderly man in the throes of dementia who shouldn’t be running around loose with the international media hanging on his every word, saying things that could provoke a global crisis? Maybe it’s both. First, he told U.S. troops in Poland what they’d see when they got to Ukraine (the White House had to walk that one back), and now he has pledged that if China invades Taiwan, the U.S. will intervene militarily. Apparently, if Joe gets his way, America will soon be at war with both Russia and China. Hey, the adults are back in charge!
The Associated Press reported Monday morning that Biden said “that the U.S. would intervene militarily if China were to invade Taiwan, saying the burden to protect Taiwan is ‘even stronger’ after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It was one of the most forceful presidential statements in support of self-governing [Taiwan] in decades.” Well, yes, you could call it “forceful.” You could also, in light of our woke and distracted military, call it “foolish, ill-considered, wrongheaded and dangerous.”
This is not to say that Taiwan should simply be handed over to China. The problem here is that Old Joe has now, amid the fog of his semi-comprehension, made a commitment to Taiwan that the U.S. has not made in the past, and major policy shifts of this kind shouldn’t be done off-the-cuff by addled figureheads pretending to be president at press conferences.
As if referring to the actions of a recalcitrant third-grader, Biden said a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would “just not be appropriate,” and asserted that such an invasion would “dislocate the entire region and be another action similar to what happened in Ukraine.” He said that it was his “expectation” that China would not invade, but added that whether or not it did “depends upon just how strong the world makes clear that that kind of action is going to result in long-term disapprobation by the rest of the community.”
This is a president whose catastrophic bungling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan projected weakness before the world that has clearly led Russia and now possibly China as well to take advantage. And he’s talking about projecting strength? The man doesn’t know the meaning of the word.
Related: Remember Taiwan? Chinese Communists Certainly Haven’t Forgotten
AP noted that Biden “said ‘yes’ when asked if he was willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if China invaded. ‘That’s the commitment we made,’ he added.” Actually, no, as AP explained: “The U.S. traditionally has avoided making such an explicit security guarantee to Taiwan, with which it no longer has a mutual defense treaty, instead maintaining a policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ about how far it would be willing to go if China invaded. The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which has governed U.S. relations with the island, does not require the U.S. to step in militarily to defend Taiwan if China invades, but makes it American policy to ensure Taiwan has the resources to defend itself and to prevent any unilateral change of status in Taiwan by Beijing.” And so while “a White House official said Biden’s comments did not reflect a policy shift,” this was clearly not the case, and more “clarification” is certainly in the offing.
Flirting with danger, Biden said of Communist China: “They’re already flirting with danger right now by flying so close and all the maneuvers that are undertaken.” And sure enough, in saying all this, affable Old Joe provoked another international incident. Communist Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin declared his country’s “strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition” to Biden’s remarks, and added: “China has no room for compromise or concessions on issues involving China’s core interests such as sovereignty and territorial integrity. China will take firm action to safeguard its sovereignty and security interests, and we will do what we say.”
Biden also said that it was important to ensure that Putin would “pay a dear price for his barbarism in Ukraine.” No one at the Tokyo press conference where all this took place dared to ask Old Joe why Putin thought now would be an opportune time to unleash that barbarism in Ukraine, or why China would be emboldened now to invade Taiwan. It’s all on Old Joe, and now he is upping the ante at a time when America has very little with which to gamble. Should this old man really be playing this dangerous game?
Join the conversation as a VIP Member