Biden and China's threat to Taiwan: the art of words in diplomacy

On April 25, 2001, when asked by a reporter if he was prepared to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty “with the full might of the United States military”, President George W. Bush replied that he would protect his ally” by any means necessary.” At the time, a senator, already recognized for his experience and fine knowledge of foreign policy, had taken up the pen in the Washington Post to lecture the occupant of the White House. In a professorial tone, he had reminded George W. Bush that “in matters of diplomacy, there is a very big difference between reserving the possibility of resorting to the use of force and obliging oneself, from beforeto come to the defense of Taiwan”. This senator was named Joe Biden.

Twenty-one years later, it was this same Joe Biden who, during a visit to Japan, seemed to question the policy of “strategic ambiguity” of the United States with regard to Taiwan. By assuring that the United States would defend the island militarily if it were attacked by Beijing, the American president, despite the denials of his advisers, distanced himself from this policy which consists in diplomatically recognizing only mainland China, while pledging to give Taiwan the military means to defend itself in the event of an invasion, without however explicitly promising an American intervention. But if we put aside the divergent interpretations that the words spoken by the American president can arouse, these raise the broader question of his strategy with regard to China.

Jérémie Gallon, spécialiste des questions européennes. — Jérémie Gallon, specialist in European issues.
Krystal Kenney

Three pillars

In an America more polarized than ever, it is first of all striking to observe the bipartisan consensus that exists on the Chinese question. Even after the Russian invasion in Ukraine, Democrats and Republicans agree that China is the only power that wants and can challenge the international order as Washington has drawn it for more than seventy-five years. . Faced with what it considers to be its greatest strategic challenge, the Biden administration has therefore attempted, from its inception, to articulate a China policy that Secretary of State Antony Blinken described in a speech delivered on 26 may.

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In order not to focus only intermittently on the Indo-Pacific basin as the Obama administration had done and to avoid adopting the erratic approach of the Trump administration, Joe Biden’s team relies on three pillars. The first is domestic. To be able to compete with Beijing, America has understood that it must invest domestically to strengthen its capacity for innovation and its resilience, to give a new impetus to its industry, to improve its infrastructure and to continue to attract talent and capital from around the world. The second consists in relying on what is one of the foundations of American power: its unique network of alliances. In this regard, the last few weeks have been marked by a United States-ASEAN meeting, Joe Biden’s visit to Japan and South Korea, and a Quad summit, a format of cooperation bringing together the United States, Japan, Australia and India. In order to contain Chinese expansion, Washington also announced a new economic partnership – dubbed the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework – which will bring together the United States and twelve countries in the region.

Finally, Washington now registers its rivalry with Beijing in a global struggle between democracies and authoritarian regimes. By acting in this way, America hopes to mobilize its European allies, but runs the risk of offending some of its Asian allies who are far from being exemplary democracies. While in 2001 the United States dreamed – in particular by welcoming it into the World Trade Organization – of “democratizing” China, this is no longer the case. Like a disappointed lover, America no longer believes in the capacity of the Middle Kingdom to transform itself. Failing to be able to change their biggest rival, the United States therefore chose to exert maximum military and economic pressure on it. If such a strategy has the merit of being less naive than the approach which was for a long time that of the West with regard to China, it remains nonetheless much more dangerous on the geopolitical level.

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* Jérémie Gallon is Managing Director for Europe of the geopolitical consulting firm McLarty Associates. He teaches international issues at Sciences Po and has published Henry Kissinger. The European (Gallimard).