would enter a war with China over Taiwan.īut amid signs that Chinese President Xi Jinping is growing impatient to end Taiwan’s semi-autonomous status, President Joe Biden upped the ante in an off-the-cuff answer to a question during a visit to Japan last month. It’s a carefully calibrated policy known as “strategic ambiguity” that is designed to keep China guessing whether the U.S. is obligated to supply defensive weapons to Taiwan and to maintain the military capability to defend Taiwan, while not actually promising to do so. “We categorically oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side,” Austin said. The U.S.'s “One China” policy regarding Taiwan is governed by a complicated web of diplomatic agreements worked out in the 1970s and '80s, known as “the three Joint Communiques, and the Six Assurances,” and most importantly by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which Austin referred to in his address to the Singapore conference the day before Wei’s speech. Its president, Tsai Ing-wen, was elected on a party platform that favors independence.Īnd while China considers Taiwan a rogue province, it is in fact a self-ruled democratic republic, which is of vital importance to the world economy because of its dominance in the export of sophisticated semiconductor chips. Taiwan, which broke away from the mainland in 1949 after communists took over, has never, and doesn’t now, consider itself part of China. We will fight at all costs, and we will fight to the very end. Let me make this clear … We will not hesitate to fight. ![]() “We will resolutely crush any attempt to pursue Taiwan independence. ![]() “China’s reunification is a great cause of the Chinese nation, and it is a historical trend that no one and no force can stop,” Wei vowed. “Peaceful unification is the greatest wish of the Chinese people.” “Taiwan is first and foremost China’s Taiwan,” Wei said, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in the audience looking on. Wei Fenghe laced his hourlong speech with references to China’s desire for “peaceful coexistence” and “peaceful settlement of disputes,” including the status of Taiwan. In addressing a security conference in Singapore earlier this month, Gen. ![]() The Chinese defense minister spoke slowly and calmly, at least that’s how it came across in English, with a Chinese translator reading from what appeared to be a copy of his prepared remarks.
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