The US will send its military to Taiwan if China uses force on the island and starts hostilities, US President Joe Biden said in an interview with Time.
The US president said he doesn’t rule out sending troops to defend Taiwan if China attacked, saying, “It would depend on the circumstances.”
At the same time, when asked about the readiness to launch strikes from US bases in Japan and the Philippines, Biden did not give a clear answer, evading the question. He also noted that the US would not formally recognise the island’s sovereignty, continuing the policy of previous administrations.
Earlier, a bipartisan group of US congressmen ignored China’s warning and visited Taiwan and met with the new chief of staff, Lai Tsingde. The head of the delegation, Congressman Michael McCaul, accused Beijing of violating the island’s sovereignty during the meeting.
Official contacts between China and Taiwan broke down in 1949 after the defeat of the Kuomintang Party in a civil war with the Chinese Communist Party. At that time, led by Chiang Kai-shek, they moved to Taiwan. Business and informal relations between the island and China resumed in the late 1980s.
Since the early 1990s, the two sides have been in contact through non-governmental organisations – the Beijing Association for the Development of Relations Across the Taiwan Strait and the Taipei Cross-Strait Exchange Foundation.
Tension is rising
Tensions between Taiwan and the PRC escalated after US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island in August 2022. China, which considers the island its own province, condemned Pelosi’s visit, seeing it as support for Taiwanese separatism, and conducted large-scale military exercises.
Earlier in May, China held a large-scale military exercise, Joint Sword 2024A, around Taiwan. Infantry, air, naval and missile forces took part in that drills. On the day the exercise began, Taiwan’s military was on high alert.
