President Joe Biden said US troops would come to Taiwan’s defence in the event of an attack by the People’s Republic of China but stressed that longstanding American policy towards the island has not changed under his administration.
Mr Biden told CBS News’ 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley that the US still abides by the policy laid out in a series of diplomatic notes between Washington and Beijing and the Jimmy Carter-era Taiwan Relations Act, under which the US acknowledges that “all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China" but does not recognise Beijing’s sovereignty over the island while maintaining informal but close ties with Taipei.
