No change to policy of strategic ambiguity on Taiwan: Biden
U.S. President Joe Biden attends the Quad leaders summit meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the prime minister's office, Tuesday, May 24, 2022, in Tokyo.(Yuichi Yamazaki/Pool Photo via AP)
TOKYO: US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday (May 24) there had been no change to the policy of strategic ambiguity on Taiwan.
Asked if there had been any change to the policy after remarks on Monday where he volunteered US military support for the self-governed island claimed by China, Biden said "No".
"The policy has not changed at all. I stated that when I made my statement yesterday."
He did not answer a question about whether he would put troops on the ground to defend Taiwan.
Biden's latest declaration followed similar insistence from top US officials that a decades-old approach to Taiwan remains in place.
This includes arming the democratic island for its own defence, while acknowledging China's legal sovereignty and expressing "strategic ambiguity" on whether American troops would ever intervene.
The reassurances follow the president's answer to a question at a press conference in Tokyo on Monday where he said "yes," when asked if Washington would be willing to get involved militarily in Taiwan's defence.
Taiwan, which is self-ruled and has a thriving trade relationship with the United States, welcomed Biden's apparent expansion of the US commitment, while China reacted angrily, saying Washington was "playing with fire".
Biden is visiting Tokyo for meetings with leaders from the Quad group, which also includes Australia, India and Japan. He earlier went to South Korea as part of a trip reinforcing key US trade and military alliances in Asia.
