U.S. President Joe Biden met with Chinese Leader Xi on March 18. The readout of the call from the White House says they discussed Taiwan, and that the position of the U.S. hasn’t changed regarding Taiwan. While trying to publicly portray this as Biden acting in Taiwan’s defense, it was likely just the opposite. There’s a good chance Biden actually just greenlit a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

For months before Russia invaded Ukraine, President Biden said over and over again the U.S. wouldn’t get involved militarily. While Russia built up 200,000 troops, some right on NATO’s border, the U.S. initially deployed no additional troops, and later only a few thousand troops in response. Over and over again we heard there would ONLY be economic consequences if Russia invaded Ukraine. This response was interesting as the most effective deterrent of invasion would have been a U.S. military build up and uncertainty by Russia about if an invasion would risk a military response from NATO and the U.S.. Instead, the Biden administration “green lighted” the Russian invasion of Ukraine by clearly and repeatedly stating the ONLY consequences would be economic.

When Biden met with Xi on March 18, one has to wonder if his message to Xi of “consequences” were also of only economic consequences. China has been rehearsing a military invasion of Taiwan since its’ government adopted a new policy of taking Taiwan by force if necessary a couple of years ago. That same policy change called for a Chinese crack down on Hong Kong, which happened just months later. The U.S. policy on Taiwan is by design ambiguous, saying the U.S. would help arm Taiwan, as we have been doing in Ukraine, but not saying that the U.S. would protect Taiwan militarily, again, similar to current policy toward Ukraine. It is likely that in the Biden Xi meeting on Friday, by affirming “current U.S. policy on Taiwan”, Biden was actually green lighting a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan.

We saw what happened in Ukraine. Let us pray and act so that we don’t see a similar invasion of Taiwan.

Carlton Bowen, former American Fork City Council member

Newsletter