Once again, when Joe Biden is meeting with the media, he has stepped in it, making his Communications Department at the White House work overtime. This time, Biden, during his Asian tour, was in Japan, when he was asked if Taiwan were invaded would the US respond militarily? Now, you have to understand the parsing that the reporter was getting at. She was basically saying, would the US go to war with China and help defend Taiwan if China decided to invade? Biden’s answer was a simple on word answer: “Yes”. He did go on to say that the US had made a commitment to supply military weapons to Taiwan and that we would live up to our commitment.
But oh, did the White House go into overdrive again on a Biden gaffe.
The Secretary of Defense, the White House Communications team, and anyone else they could roust out of a sound sleep, hurried to a microphone or a camera and said that the policy the United States has with the “one-China policy” we adopted back when China gained entrance into the UN was still in tact. There has been no change in our policy toward China or toward Taiwan.
See, they had to do that because when the President of the United States answers a question whether the US would respond militarily if China invaded Taiwan, with a “Yes”, that throws shockwaves around the world. The Chinese were exceedingly upset. They felt the US was basically taking the position that if they tried to reunify Taiwan with the mainland China, the US would be there to fight the Chinese on land and in the sea. That’s a major turning point. And once again, Biden gets into trouble with his off the cuff remarks.
This is why Biden is told to stick to the teleprompter, and don’t ad lib. Don’t talk to reporters. Don’t give interviews with major media outlets. Don’t do anything unless we tell you it’s okay to do. Because otherwise, we have to walk-back all of your comments and that just makes everyone including you and us look bad. It makes us look like we really don’t know what we’re doing.
What you’re seeing is a Joe Biden that is answering everything the way he thinks it should be, and then the White House trying to clean up a mess because it’s not the way it really is. You get into a lot of trouble when you answer questions unequivocally and not with “strategic ambiguity”. There’s a major reason why the US wants to be ambiguous when it comes to how it’s going to defend Taiwan and to what lengths it’s going to go to do so. You don’t want to take anything off the table when you’re dealing with a nuclear country like China, or Russia. You need to make them think everything is fair game. That’s not what Joe Biden did. He went too far again, and it showed.
And it makes the point very clearly that Biden is not really running anything. He’s the face of the country, but he’s not in charge of making the decisions. That is being handled differently and by different people. Then they relay that decision to Biden and he’s supposed to just read the teleprompter and not go off script. Sounds to me like Biden isn’t doing anything more than speaking his mind without regards to the weight of the words he’s uttering. That’s what gets him into trouble.
And that’s why he never should have been elected president in the first place!
Carry on world…you’re dismissed!
The Lone Cactus 
I think Biden’s “yes” answer was wonderful and just what is needed. Blow back from China ? China has been making war against the US for decades with their hacking, military and industrial spying, all kinds of patent theft, killing 110,000 Americans with fentanyl coming across the border in 2021, working with the drug cartels, endless cyber attacks and now financing Russia’s war by purchasing Russian energy. Too bad we probably will not actualize the “yes”.
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You’re 100% about China, Carl. And Biden’s answer, while causing all sorts of Maalox to be chugged inside the White House, has a ring of truth to it. The problem is, as you mention, the US right now is not in the mood for a war with anyone. Not after 20 years in Afghanistan, and Iraq. But yes, it was probably the one honest comment coming from Biden in the last 18 months!
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A crippling disaster will come if we become of fossil fuel for electric cars. China has been buying up and stockpiling rare metals needed for electric cars esp batteries. If we have no more gas cars China can bring all US transportation to a complete halt. We could not make batteries or cars then. The shortsightedness is astonishing.
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And isn’t it funny that Biden has close ties to the Chinese, AND he is so sold on EV’s??? Makes you wonder what side he’s on, doesn’t it?
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Biden , dems, and green dealers are USA’s self destruct genes and they have been fully activated. Chjina, Russia, N Korea and Iran must be pissing in their pants with laughter. Actual threats to the security of USA.
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For a nanosecond the veil was lifted and we saw what we knew to be true. Biden is a mere hologram.
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I think you may be on to something bunkerville!!!
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Excellent post.
The “one China policy” is diplomatically sound. It was hard for me to imagine that the United States could fool itself into believing that Red China didn’t actually exist — and do it for so many years. It made better sense to recognize the independence of the Republic of Taiwan, even if it did take us a few years for that light to turn on. So then, if a reporter should ask, “Will the United States defend (the Republic of) Taiwan from Chinese military invasion,” then a direct answer would be preferred to hemming and hawing around.
But we’ve been hemming and hawing around for a long time. About Taiwan. About Chinese artificial islands in the South China Sea. About Chinese hacking of America’s most sensitive data systems. I believe that hemming and hawing are more dangerous than “direct talk” By direct talk, I mean the kind of dialogue that is factually correct, unambiguous, and professional. By professional, I mean dialogue communicated to officials of the Chinese government rather than some snot-nosed reporter who would sell her baby sister into prostitution for a by-line.
Let me illustrate what I mean by “hemming and hawing” — We demurred when China ran around insisting that Taiwan was a “runaway republic/province.” We might have argued that Japan also controlled Formosa and that — if one goes back in time far enough, we will find that the Portuguese also controlled the island, and then the Dutch called it Tayouan. The Chinese looked across the sea at the island and named it Liuqui; the Japanese called it Ryukyu (their way of saying Liuqui). Japan ruled Taiwan for 50 years.
In 1943, Roosevelt agreed to return Japanese occupied Taiwan to the Republic of China … which, at the time, was controlled by Chiang Kai-shek. Roosevelt, the silly man, assumed that Chiang would continue to control the ROC. This may actually have happened once Mao resumed the Chinese Revolution in 1945 were it not for the fact that Roosevelt gave Mao weapons, ammunition, and equipment to use against Japan during the war. Mao didn’t do that. He kept all that stuff to use against Chiang … and did use it against Chiang — after Mao used it against U.S. Marines (1945-1947).
Conclusion: You’re right — we should stop electing hemmers and hawers — and Biden should never have been elected to any office (at all) (ever) much less President.
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I love reading your discourses. I think the history lesson of Taiwan is fascinating. But if we are going to say that because Japan ruled what’s now called Taiwan, you would also have to say that the Moors would have control of Spain, right? History is full of countries that once were that are no more, and countries that controlled other lands outside their own territory but ended up ceding them one way or another to another country. Love your style!!!
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Reblogged this on boudica.us.
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