On Monday, many journalists and pundits jumped to the conclusion that President Joe Biden was abandoning America's long-held "strategic ambiguity" concerning the defense of Taiwan. At a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida when asked, "Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?" Biden responded "yes" with confidence, following that up with, "that's the commitment we made." (The White House quickly walked his comments back.)
The commitment that Biden is referencing is the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which he supported as a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1979. The TRA basically guarantees that the U.S. will make sure that Taiwan has the ability to defend itself. However, the TRA doesn't include a binding agreement the way agreements like NATO do. Legally, the U.S. has never promised to defend Taiwan as it has with NATO countries. Eric Gomez, the director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, tells Reason that the TRA was "the price of admission for U.S.-China relations."
