China is becoming “more repressive at home and more aggressive abroad”, according to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken. Blinken made a major statement on US foreign policy on May 26 at George Washington University. It received a great deal of attention, internationally – not least because reporters and foreign policy analysts wanted to know whether Blinken would clarify remarks made earlier in the week by the president, Joe Biden, to the effect that the US would take military action to defend Taiwan if China launched an invasion.
This appeared to be a shift away from the US policy of “strategic ambiguity”, by which the US is committed to supplying Taipei with weapons systems and training to defend itself, but leaves open whether it would intervene militarily.
