US President Joe Biden said the US military will defend Taiwan if the Chinese military invades the island of 23 million during an interview broadcast Sunday night.

Despite the head of state’s statement to the AFP news agency, a White House official assured shortly after the broadcast of the interview that Washington’s policy on the Taiwan issue “has not changed.”

Asked in an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes if the US military would defend Taiwan, which China considers a breakaway province destined to reunite with the mainland in the future, Biden replied: “Yes, if there really was an unprecedented attack. “

Asked if he meant that, unlike what happened in Ukraine, the US military would be involved in a war against China if Taiwan were invaded, Mr. Biden answered in one word: “yes.”

However, the American president said that he did not intend to “encourage” the island’s authorities to declare Taiwan’s independence. “It’s their decision,” he said.

China considers Taiwan part of its territory, although the island has had its own government since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

In seven decades, the People’s Liberation Army of China has never once occupied the island, officially the Republic of China, a regime that once ruled mainland China but now controls only the island.

Joe Biden reiterated at the end of May that the US would intervene militarily to support Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, which angered Beijing.

He then appeared to reformulate that statement, claiming he remained committed to Washington’s “strategic ambiguity,” a deliberately vague tactic.

The “strategic ambiguity” is that the US refrains from making clear whether it will intervene militarily on behalf of Taiwan if China attacks. This approach, which has been used for decades, has so far allowed maintaining a certain stability.

The pressure on Taiwan has intensified since Xi Jinping came to power in Beijing ten years ago. Xi sees China’s “unification” with Taiwan as part of his plan for a “great renewal” of China.

Tensions between the US and China reached their highest level in decades last month. Beijing has launched large-scale military exercises around Taiwan in an unprecedented show of force in response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei.

Source: RES-IPE