If Biden Won't Counter China, Why Is He Committing To Defend Taiwan?

President Biden's off-script declaration during his recent Tokyo visit that the United States would intervene militarily if China tried to take Taiwan by force represents a major change in U.S. foreign policy, no matter how much Biden's White House handlers try to spin it as yet another instance of the president merely "Misspeaking."

Biden was not misspeaking, he was articulating what the American people, along with the rest of the world, must now understand U.S. policy to be vis-à-vis Taiwan and China.

A promise to intervene with U.S. forces amounts to a guarantee of Taiwanese independence and a break with America's longstanding "Strategic ambiguity" on Taiwan, including U.S. acceptance of the "One China" policy, whereby the United States acknowledges Beijing's claims to Taiwan.

Beijing will almost certainly take Biden at his word, which means we need to reckon with the reality that we are not prepared to intervene militarily in Taiwan, and that a major reason for this unpreparedness is longstanding U.S. strategic incoherence about China that has enabled its rise and left us dangerously weakened.

For decades, we have sold U.S. arms to Taiwan to aid its defense while pursuing economic and trade policies that enriched and empowered the People's Republic of China.

PRC rule over Taiwan remains the official policy of the Chinese Communist Party, which is one reason China's Foreign Ministry responded with undisguised outrage over Biden's comments, saying China "Has no room for compromise and concession" on Taiwan and "Will take firm action to safeguard its sovereignty and security interests."

These things have been true for a long time, and for a long time our elites have pretended otherwise, happy to enrich themselves fron China's rise while cynically committing to Taiwan's defense.
 

https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/24/if-biden-wont-counter-china-theres-no-point-committing-to-the-defense-of-taiwan/