WASHINGTON — Three times as president, Joe Biden has said the U.S. would defend Taiwan if China invades the island, and each time his staff argued he wasn’t changing long-standing U.S. policy to keep Beijing guessing about U.S. intentions. His fourth time makes that much harder to do.
In comments to “60 Minutes” on Sunday, Biden left no doubt where he stood, saying the U.S. would commit military forces in the event of an “unprecedented attack” by China. Pressed if that would involve U.S. men and women — unlike in Ukraine, where Biden has ruled out sending American forces — he said “yes.”
A spokeswoman again insisted that policy toward the island hadn’t changed. But with the U.S. stance toward China hardening more broadly, it was difficult to see Biden’s comments as anything other than a refutation of decades of so-called “strategic ambiguity” in which the U.S. declined to make its intentions clear.
