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President Joe Biden affirmed this Wednesday before the UN that he is not looking for a “Cold War” with China. He reiterated that his country would not support any unilateral change in the status quo with Taiwan, whose sovereignty Beijing claims.
The President reiterated his government’s respect for the “one China” principle that Beijing imposes as the basis for its ties with any country so that the only Chinese Executive that the US should recognize is the one based in Beijing, which distances it from Taiwan’s independence aspirations.
These comments on China and Taiwan come after Biden said in an interview with CBS on Sunday that he would send U.S. military forces to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion of the island.
The White House later sought to qualify those statements and said that policy toward Taiwan has not changed.
The tension between the United States and China over Taiwan has increased recently with Chinese military maneuvers near the island and a controversial visit in early August by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The United States maintains a policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan, leaving it up in the air whether it would act to defend it militarily. However, the so-called Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 makes the U.S. the power delivering the most weaponry.
Under the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States announced a $1.1 billion military assistance package to the island earlier this month, the largest ever granted to Taipei by the Biden administration.
