Then-Vice President Joe Biden (left) toasts with China’s Xi Jinping during a December 2013 visit to China. Credit: Official White House Photo by David Lienemann
Grant Newsham, Asia Times: Biden faces an urgent crucial choice on Taiwan
If the Biden administration opts to deliver Taiwan and its 24 million free people to China then the US is finished as an Asian power.
Except for Gurkhas, the Taiwanese may be the most cheerful people on the planet.
But they’ve also got a keen sense of danger and that’s not surprising since for the last 70 years the Chinese communists – only 90 miles away across the Taiwan Strait – have threatened to seize the self-governing island. And now the People’s Liberation Army just might be able to do it.
Last year this writer was in Taipei and puzzling over a street map outside a subway station. A young Taiwanese woman asked if she could help. Since my destination wasn’t far she offered to take me there. After setting off, the woman asked where I was from?
“America.” Her reply: “Please don’t let us become part of China.”
I mumbled that we would do our best. But I didn’t have the heart to tell her that US officials of all stripes had been trying to deliver Taiwan unto the PRC for many years. And only Donald Trump’s surprise election in 2016 – and the presence of some key advisors who understood Taiwan’s value – put the brakes on the handoff.
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WNU Editor: I do not know what the Biden administration's policy will be when it comes to Taiwan. But I do know that Beijing is confident that a Biden administration will not pursue the same pro-Taiwan policy that President Trump has in the past year.
