TOKYO — President Joe Biden said Monday that the United States would intervene militarily in Taiwan if necessary, in an apparent shift away from the U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” that quickly ratcheted up tensions with China.
The comment — not the first instance of Biden’s blunt rhetoric on the world stage causing confusion and geopolitical uncertainty — suggested a willingness from Biden to go further in defending Taiwan than he has in aiding Ukraine, which has received tens of billions of dollars in arms and intelligence assistance but not the direct intervention of U.S. or NATO troops.
“You didn’t want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons,” a reporter said to Biden during the president’s joint news conference in Tokyo with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. “Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?”
