Joe Biden reiterates US Taiwan policy after meeting with Xi

Joe Biden once again tried to insist that he was not changing the US’s “One China” policy towards China and Taiwan even as he has repeatedly stated that the US would defend Taiwan if it were to be attacked.

His latest comments came on Monday after a meeting with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, who recently engineered the end of his own term limits, on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia.

According to a White House readout: “On Taiwan, he laid out in detail that our one China policy has not changed, the United States opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo by either side, and the world has an interest in the maintenance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. He raised U.S. objections to the PRC’s coercive and increasingly aggressive actions toward Taiwan, which undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region, and jeopardize global prosperity.”

The statement comes as US-China tensions have simmered somewhat but remain tense in recent months thanks in part to the dispute over China’s posture towards the island where the defeated White Army retreated after China’s civil war. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently led a delegation to the island to meet with government officials, further exacerbating the Chinese indignation regarding the US’s support for Taiwan.

US support for the self-governing island has long bordered on outright support for the island’s independence, though the State Department claims the US does not support that potential development. President Joe Biden has further muddied those waters with three statements in recent months pledging an armed US military response were the island to be invaded, even as he insists such a declaration is not a change of policy.

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