What’s your bet? I’m thinking sometime in December
Blinken says US ‘does not support Taiwan independence’ during China visit
Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated U.S. support of the “One China” policy on Monday, saying that the U.S. does not support Taiwanese independence following a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“We do not support Taiwan independence,” Blinken said in a press conference on Monday. “We remain opposed to any unilateral changes to the status quo by either side. We continue to expect the peaceful resolution of cross strait differences. We remain committed to continuing our responsibilities under the Taiwan Relations Act including making sure Taiwan has the ability to defend itself.”
“At the same time, we and many others have deep concerns about some of the provocative actions that China has taken in recent years going back to 2016,” Blinken added. “And the reason that this is a concern for so many countries, not just the United States, is that were there to be a crisis over Taiwan, the likelihood is that could produce an economic crisis that could affect quite literally the entire world.”
“Fifty percent of commercial container traffic goes through the Taiwan Strait every day. Seventy percent of semiconductors are manufactured in Taiwan. If as a result of a crisis that was taken offline, it would have dramatic consequences for virtually every country around the world,” he added.
It’s not really a change in position, but, it’s a Bad Thing for a Biden regime member to say it out-loud and forthright, especially since the Biden regime is pretty darned week internationally, with one thing leading to another, such as the horrible Afghanistan withdrawal leading to Ukraine. China will see this as pure weakness, like most things Biden. It is a tightrope
But the means that China will need to use to achieve its ascendancy over Asia are military. And Taiwan occupies a central position along Beijing’s path to this goal. (snip)
It’s in this hard-nosed context that Taiwan takes on such importance. We might admire its democracy and entrepreneurial spirit, but those are not enough to justify Americans going to war. Instead, Taiwan is important to Americans for two reasons: because it is militarily critical and because it is a bellwether.
First, Taiwan is vital to the defense of Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. If China occupied Taiwan, it would pose a much greater threat to these countries and be able to project power deep into the Pacific, a very real possibility as we can see from China’s activities in Solomon Islands and its construction of an enormous oceangoing navy, including aircraft carriers.
Second, Taiwan is the canary in the coal mine. Credibility arguments always deserve to be met with skepticism. But it is only rational for Taiwan’s neighbors to look at how we treat Taiwan as an indicator of how we would treat them. Whether we like it or not, Taiwan’s fate will play a major role in whether countries think America is reliable as the cornerstone of the coalition. Indeed, as a result, if Taiwan fell we would probably have to do far more aggressive things to prove we were reliable at all.
China is salivating at being able to finally retake Taiwan and knock the U.S. down.
The timing on this should be interesting. Communist China needs Biden to remain where he is and keep the pro-America American politicians (Trump, DeSantis, Vivek Kennedy) out. Most of the other republican candidates (Christie, Pence, Nikki!, Asa) are “NeverTrump! Long Live The RNC!!” before they are “Yay! America!”
Biden has formed a strong coalition amongst the chip producing countries who have all agreed to stop selling all high and medium powered chips to China, as well as all the machines needed to build chips
75% of china’s oil comes by sea from the Mideast China has 100million barrel reserve but uses 16million barrels per day.
In the event of war no tankers will unload.the country stops moving in 30days, first cars then trucks.
Taiwan will destroy its chip factories before losing that war.
The USA has continued to show it’s naval forces increasing in the South China Sea.taiwanbis not going to be invaded. Putin is not going nuclear as Teach earlier warned us.
To be fair, the policy of the United States has long been that Taiwan is a part of China, but supports the separate government. However, Xi Jinping has long been annoyed at Taiwan’s separate government, and now that he has secured his position at home as President for life, and pretty much rooted out any real opponents, he has the opportunity to invade and conquer Taiwan.
Taiwan is only a couple hundred miles from the Chinese coastline, but over 6,000 miles from the continental United States. We are committed to defending Taiwan, but that begs the question: how can we defend Taiwan if China invades?
Add to that all of the war materiel we have sent to Ukraine, as well as just left behind in Afghanistan, and we are simply unprepared to do what it would take to defend Taiwan. China could invade and occupy before we could get any substantial forces there. At that point, the problem is no longer the defense of Taiwan, but the liberation of Taiwan.
Our worldwide defense commitments were made when we were by far the world’s strongest nuclear power, but now both
the Soviet UnionRussia and China have nuclear forces capable of completely obliterating our country, and we have no way to stop them other than our own deterrent forces.It used to be that in the US, politics stopped at the water’s edge. But no more.
The dishonorable and dishonest invasions of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan changed all that. The American people lost faith in their “leaders'” honesty.
Now, both sides feel free to let fly at not only the “leaders” but also our military men and women!
We remember a few years ago the right celebrating the manliness of the Russians and the pussification of American troops. Today, the “manly” Russian Army is losing to Ukrainians!