Tangle - Biden's Taiwan comments.

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

On Monday, President Joe Biden was visiting Japan when he told world leaders that the U.S. would militarily defend Taiwan if China invaded the island. Plus, a question about red flag laws.You can read today's podcast here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle.

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be talking about Taiwan and President Biden's recent comments about Taiwan. Before we jump in, though, first, a heads up, we will be off tomorrow and Monday. It's Memorial Day. So, you know, you should go outside, get some sunshine, stop reading the news, take a break. We're taking a brief vacation.

Just, you know, Memorial Day is a bank holiday. Figure make it a four-day weekend. But we'll be back right here on Tuesday. So if you don't hear from us for a couple of days, that's why. All right, let's get into our quick hits before we jump in. First up, Pennsylvania will begin a recount of its hotly contested GOP Senate primary today. Dr. Mehmet Oz is leading by 902 votes. Number two, President Biden is expected to sign an executive order that bans chokeholds, creates a national database of police misconduct, and requires anti-bias training. In Georgia, Brian Kemp defeated the Trump-endorsed Senator David Perdue in the primary race for

governor, and Brad Raffensperger beat the Trump-endorsed Jody Heiss in the race for governor, and Brad Raffensperger beat the Trump-endorsed Jody Heiss in the race for Secretary of State. Herschel Walker, Trump's pick in the Senate, won his primary race and will face Raphael Warnock. Brian Kemp will face Stacey Abrams in the governor's race. In Texas, Representative Henry Queller defeated progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros. Queller is a pro-life Democrat supported by the NRA who drew criticism from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. 5. Oklahoma's governor signed the strictest abortion ban in the United States, ending the procedure entirely with exceptions for rape, incest, or if the mother's life is in danger. President Biden is on his way home from his first trip to Asia as president. The growing threat from China was the main topic of discussion with other Asian Pacific leaders.

A day earlier, Mr. Biden caused a stir when he said the U.S. would defend Taiwan. You didn't want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons. Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that? Yes. You are? That's a commitment we made. The idea that it could be taken by force is just not appropriate. It will dislocate the entire region and be another action similar to what happened in Ukraine. similar to what happened in Ukraine. On Monday, President Joe Biden was visiting Japan when he told world leaders that the United States would militarily defend Taiwan if China invaded the

island. Yes, he said, when asked by a reporter if the U.S. would intervene militarily, that's the commitment we made. The response from Biden was a departure from the U.S. policy known as strategic ambiguity, in which the United States has tried to keep both China and Taiwan happy by not committing to a position on what they would do in the event of an attack. The relationship between Taiwan and the United States is one of the most complicated in all of our foreign policy. Here's a brief refresher. Taiwan is an island of 24 million people about 100 miles off the coast of mainland China. It previously existed under Japanese rule until the end of World War II.

In 1949, during the Civil War in China, Mao Zedong's communist forces pushed Chiang Kai-shek and nationalist forces to flee the island. Mao's party won the Civil War, and the Taiwanese government became autonomous and democratic. Party won the civil war and the Taiwanese government became autonomous and democratic. However, China continued to claim the island and Chinese leaders have often talked about both a peaceful reunification and the threat of a military takeover. For decades, America's strategic ambiguity has done two things. It has helped prevent China from trying to take Taiwan by force and it has helped prevent pro-independence Taiwanese from attempting to completely sever the country from China. In other words, it has kept the status quo in place. 30 years ago, most people in Taiwan viewed themselves at least partly Chinese. Today, that opinion has changed drastically, although a third of the population still identifies as

some mix of Chinese and Taiwanese. The most popular position today on reunification with China is to remain in status quo and decide at a later date. The next two most popular options are maintain the status quo indefinitely and move toward independence. Taiwanese people overwhelmingly reject reunification, though some support does exist, and Taiwan's current president, Tsai Ing-wen, ran on a pro-independence platform. In 1979, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, which commits the U.S. to ensure Taiwan can defend itself, but does not require us to defend it militarily. Under Trump, the United States deepened its relationship with Taiwan. Taiwan is the major source of semiconductor

chips to the United States. While we do not formally recognize Taiwan as a country, we maintain a deep trade relationship with them and we also sell them military equipment. Biden's comments immediately set off a firestorm. This is the third time he has publicly indicated we would intervene militarily in the last year and the third time the White House has walked back his comments afterward. Today, we're going to look at this story through the lens of some U.S.-based writers on the right and the left, and then my take. Hey guys, this is Isaac here.

If you are listening to this podcast, it's probably because you're interested in finding some common ground. If that's the case, I have a great recommendation for you. It's a new podcast called Let's Find Common Ground. They are trying to do the opposite of what a lot of other news organizations do, which is seize on fear, anger, distrust, and division. Remarkable, innovative people

who are working to bridge differences and reach an understanding with those who see the world a little differently than they do are having conversations on this podcast every day. You'll hear from politicians, scholars, activists, journalists, and everyday people. They share their personal stories about finding common ground on race, the environment, criminal justice reform, and all the other controversial topics you can think of. New podcast episodes are released every two weeks, and you can join hosts Richard Davies and Ashley Milne-Tight for Let's Find Common Ground. You can find episodes at commongroundcommittee.org slash podcast,

or wherever you get your podcasts. That's commongroundcommittee.org slash podcast. First up, we'll start with what the right is saying. The responses on the right have been mixed, with some worried Biden's stumble could provoke a conflict. Others say Biden is acting in a calculated fashion and it is the right time to pressure China. Some wrote about the pressure this puts on the U.S. military and the risk at hand. In Fox News, Liz Peek said the comments were just the latest from Biden that could unintentionally provoke a war. Once again, addressing a foreign audience without the benefit of his teleprompter, President Biden wandered off script, in this case promising

that the United States would respond militarily if China were to invade Taiwan, Peek wrote. Once again, the White House had to walk back his careless remarks. It was just weeks ago that Biden made similarly reckless comments during a visit to Poland when he appeared to call for the overthrow of Vladimir Putin and suggested that USGIs may soon enter Ukraine. Casually dropping a military threat against China is not smart at any time, but especially now as President Xi faces criticisms for having mishandled the economy and COVID, he could grasp Biden's injudicious promise like a life raft, using the implied threat as an excuse to ramp up military aggression or even invade Taiwan, Peake wrote. Biden's suggestion that the United States would back Taiwan militarily represents a

departure from the strategic ambiguity that has long guided official U.S. policy. Our approach has been, in effect, to keep China guessing, hoping that uncertainty would deter Beijing from invading its breakaway region. Biden, speaking in Japan, pretty much demolished that uncertainty. In The Atlantic, David Frum argued that the words were not a mistake, but a calculated policy. Not only the Biden-skept skeptical New York Post, but other media organizations too have treated these words as an unintended mess that he'd need to untangle, as the CBS author John Dickerson phrased it. But if there's a tangle, it's not Biden's fault,

Frum wrote. U.S. policy toward Taiwan is often described as strategic ambiguity, usually understood as the U.S. will defend Taiwan but won't say so. But behind this U.S. ambiguity has stood a prior Chinese ambiguity. China's version of strategic ambiguity simultaneously 1. Proclaim Beijing's theoretical sovereignty over Taiwan and 2. Refrain from overt actions to assert that sovereignty. Under the rule of Xi Jinping, China has progressively reneged on the second half of its strategic ambiguity, Frum wrote. China has ordered bigger and bigger incursions into Taiwan's air defense zone. China has the means to mount a naval blockade of the island. It has

mounted sustained and aggressive cyber attacks. Throughout, Chinese leaders have growled explicit threats of armed force. Taiwanese officials describe the present situation as the most dangerous of the last 40 years. So Biden is not leading this particular diplomatic two-step. Biden is not really initiating anything at all. As China jettisons its prior strategic ambiguity, so Biden has been pushed away from American strategic ambiguity too. As Chinese threats of aggression have become more explicit, so too have U.S. promises of defense become more explicit. In the Washington Examiner, Tom Rogin said the comments increased pressure on the United States. Taiwan's reunification with China is a destiny-defining

test. The importance with which Xi regards this issue cannot be overstated. It is even more significant to his political identity than the restoration of a greater Russian imperium is to Vladimir Putin, and that is saying something, Rogin wrote. After all, the party intends to assure its rise to global preeminence for this century. It wants to replace the U.S.-led democratic international order with its own autocratic mercantile feudal order. But if Beijing cannot bring nearby Taiwan under its heel and finish its own civilocratic mercantile feudal order. But if Beijing cannot bring nearby Taiwan under its heel and finish its own civil war, then Chinese leaders can hardly feel confident about achieving their global aims. Taiwan's continued existence as an independent entity tests the

credibility of its ambition. Taiwan's democracy matters to Beijing for another reason, Rogin said, namely it offers an increasingly dangerous governing counterpoint to the Communist Party's centralized autocracy. Evinced by its acts of genocide against the Uyghur peoples, its destruction of democracy in Hong Kong, its limits on celebrity culture, and its disappearance even of satirists who dare to tease Xi, the Communist Party views true freedom as an existential threat. As tensions within China grow over issues such as COVID-19 lockdowns, living standards, and demographics, the regime's paranoid need for public dominion will only escalate. Taiwan's challenge to China will

thus be seen as increasingly intolerable. All right, that is it for what the right is saying, which brings us to the left's take. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca. province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur and 100% protection is not guaranteed.

Learn more at flucellvax.ca. The responses on the left are also mixed, with some supporting the comments and others worried about escalation. Some say Biden should have a specific plan on how to move forward. Others say the comments amount to a new U.S. policy. The Washington Post editorial board said Biden got less ambiguous and more strategic. We don't pretend to know why Mr. Biden made his comment. What we will say is that it's not cause for a crisis, the board wrote. To the contrary, there might be a benefit. Mr. Biden did not so much end strategic ambiguity as modify it. Between his repeated allusions to a U.S. duty to defend Taiwan,

Monday's was the third such since August, and his staff's repeated denials that the president's word mean quite what they seem to mean, Beijing has new reasons to think long and hard before sending its armed forces across the Taiwan Strait. Yet the People's Republic of China cannot quite accuse the United States of violating the understandings forged in Nixon's time because, technically, it hasn't. If there's a flaw in Mr. Biden's approach to countering China, it's the vagueness of the plan for regional commercial integration he's offering, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, the board said. It is no substitute for the market-opening Trans-Pacific Partnership that was negotiated by President Barack Obama and then abandoned by President Donald Trump. Mr. Biden has China guessing about the U.S. intentions toward Taiwan. Maximizing

Beijing's worries, however, would require much more robust economic engagement with East Asia, India, and Australia. In The Guardian, Stephen Wertheim said the comments were dangerous. This is the third time in less than a year that Biden has publicly declared that the United States would use force to keep Beijing from seizing the island, he wrote. Once again, the White House scrambled to clarify that the U.S. position has not actually changed. The United States continues to adhere to a one-China policy and maintain quote-unquote strategic ambiguity rather than clarity as to whether it would defend Taiwan. This approach is a wise one that, as many administration officials recognize, has served the United States pretty well.

But repeated gaffes risk being interpreted as changes in policy. They increase the chance of damaging peace and stability between the world's two leading powers. No single presidential utterance is likely to cause President Xi Jinping of China to make a policy decision of enormous consequence. More troubling, however, is the larger policy drift in Washington to which the gaffe contributes. Over the past few years, members of Congress have increasingly called for strategic clarity about using force to defend Taiwan and have promoted other steps to restore the appearance

of diplomatic relations between Washington and Taipei. Under Donald Trump's administration, the United States loosened restrictions on high-level contacts with Taiwanese officials, and the Biden administration has issued new guidelines to reflect our deepening unofficial relationship. More important, these measures have accompanied the growing hostility across U.S.-China relations as the world's two leading countries engage in intensifying economic, technological, and security competition. In Slate, Fred Kaplan questioned what was really behind the recent comments. What exactly should we make of it? Was Biden just pulling yet another Biden, accidentally opening his mouth and speaking a bit too cavalierly on an issue inquiring

subtle sensitivity? Or did he deliberately unfurl a new policy? And was it a good or bad thing if he did? As is often the case with such incidents, the answers are unclear, Kaplan said. Biden's remarks may have been calculated or careless. The consequences could be damaging or beneficial, or both. Either way, they have added another element of uncertainty to U.S.-Taiwan relations, a uniquely head-twisting hall of mirrors in the funhouse of American foreign policy. Hours after each of these cases in August and September and this past Monday, the White House issued a clarifying statement noting that U.S. policy had not changed, Kaplan said. Biden himself affirmed on Tuesday, standing alongside other Asian allies who had assembled for

a conference, that the policy of strategic ambiguity has not changed at all. But is that true? Biden is the president. Three times in the past nine months, he has made statements about U.S. security guarantees toward Taiwan that differ quite a bit from the tenets of strategic ambiguity. All right, that is it for the left and the right's take, which brings us to my take. One thing that's abundantly clear from reading all this commentary about Biden's position and how we navigate a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, nobody seems to agree. So isn't that kind of the point? What's more ambiguous than this? The only people who really know whether this was a gaffe or a blunder are Biden and his closest aides, but there's good reason to believe it's anything but. For starters, this didn't happen once. As many

commentators have noted, this is the third time Biden has explicitly said the U.S. would defend Taiwan militarily. Second, this is right in Biden's wheelhouse. Few politicians have spent more time engaged on the China-Taiwan issue than he has, and his history with President Xi is also deep and storied. Third, there is a practical reason for what they are doing, to keep China guessing. As conservative commentator Brett Stevens put it, don't believe the diplomatic spin that there's nothing to see here, he wrote. Don't believe either that the president didn't know what he was doing. What Biden said is dramatic, as well as prudent, necessary, and strategically astute. One of the things I regularly complimented Trump on was that our adversaries never had any idea what he was going to do. Opponents of the

former president said this because he was a raving madman, but Trump and his allies maintain that his unpredictability was a strength. I tend to agree, and I think a similar idea exists here. It is important that your allies know where you stand, but it's also important that you maintain some level of ambiguity with your adversaries. The less China knows about precisely how we will respond, the more cautious they will be and the better things are for Taiwan and the world. Now, of course, this is not Ukraine and Russia. These are two vastly different countries with different dynamics and histories and interests. While the Taiwanese population seems quite cool on the idea of reunification now, it should be said that it's a political issue that isn't going away anytime soon. Their agencies should be prioritized in this equation, and the US should continue to

defer to the democratically elected leaders of Taiwan on the path forward. As for what we should actually do, I'm not sure we'd have much of a choice. Even from a pure nationalistic perspective, if China were to invade Taiwan and we did nothing, the island would almost certainly fall. That would probably cripple our economy and send us into a recession or depression given how dependent we are on Taiwanese semiconductors and other products. Unlike Ukraine, I'm not sure we'd be able to sit this one out and simply fund the game from afar. Like Ukraine, we'd also be faced with the moral question of whether we should simply allow one nation to invade and conquer a smaller, weaker, free country while doing nothing. Fortunately, I really don't

think this is all that likely. There are too many incentives not to have a real conflict on both conquer a smaller, weaker, free country while doing nothing. Fortunately, I really don't think this is all that likely. There are too many incentives not to have a real conflict on both sides, and even though China continues to escalate its military exercises and bluster, its leadership until now has been far more cautious in calculating than to launch a war that could send the entire region into a tailspin. I hope. the entire region to a tailspin. I hope. Alright, that is it for my take, and that brings us to our reader question for the day. This one's from Luke in Lincoln, Delaware. He said, Red flag laws always come to the forefront when there is a mass shooting by a troubled individual who publicly displayed many warning signs, which seems to be most of them. As a

libertarian, my concern with red flag laws is that they seek to limit or deprive someone of a constitutional right before they have committed a crime. Do you support red flag laws and or do you see them as a violation of due process? So for the uninitiated, red flag laws are when a state gives a court authority to confiscate firearms from someone who is deemed a danger to themselves or others. The request can come from relatives, friends, or law enforcement. It seems worth noting there are murmurs of Congress pushing a red flag law with some Republican support in the coming days. That's kind of the talk about where this gun rights legislation might go. You may have noticed in yesterday's lengthy piece on the Texas shooting, I did not mention red flag laws as part of my solutions section. This is honestly because

I can't make my mind up about them. I see the obvious benefits in that they give the first layer of defense I wrote about yesterday, which is friends and family, the ability to stop someone in crisis from using a gun to be violent. Research on the laws are limited, but 19 states already have them, and so far it looks like, at the very least, they reduce suicides. At the same time, I share your concern about due process. Some states allow courts to order firearms taken away before a hearing is even conducted. It isn't hard to imagine someone abusing this process in a vindictive way. There are also the dynamics of taking something someone owns away from them versus preventing someone from buying something that makes me feel a little icky.

I prefer the latter, not the former. Still, I could see red flag laws that function well. Harsh penalties for people who make false allegations, mandatory hearings before a decision about taking a weapon, and a clear and cost-free avenue for someone to petition that ruling to get their gun back if they feel it was wrong. Again, this wouldn't be a priority for me over some of the solutions I wrote about yesterday, but I definitely see both the merit and the concern, which is why I didn't really address it directly. Alright, that is it for your questions answered, which brings us to a story that matters. On Wednesday, the head of the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, Dr. Robert Califf,

testified on the conditions of the Abbott Nutrition Plant in Michigan that was shut down. This plant was the one at the center of the baby formula crisis. Califf said the plant was, quote, egregiously unsanitary, end quote, citing a leaking roof, water pooled on the floor, and cracks in production equipment that allowed bacteria to thrive. Califf also conceded the FDA's response was too slow in addressing the problems at the plant. The plant is now expected to reopen on June 4th after the FDA and Justice Department laid out guidelines that needed to be met. The New York Times has a story on his testimony. You can read it in today's newsletter. It's a subscription link when you click it, so just a heads up on that.

All right, next up is our numbers section. The number of gun deaths per 100,000 children age 0 to 19 is 5.3 in the United States. It is now the leading cause of death in kids in America. The number of motor vehicle deaths per 100,000 children aged 0 to 19 is 4.8. That is now the second leading cause of death of kids in America. The number of countries globally that recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation is 13 The number of active duty military personnel in the Taiwanese army is 163,000 The number of active duty military personnel in the Chinese army is 2 million

The percentage of the globe's computer chips manufactured in Taiwan is 65% Alright, next up is our have a nice day story. Last but not least, as always, an 83-year-old woman in Missouri is becoming a Tough Mudder legend. Mildred Wilson has completed three Tough Mudders, a five-kilometer endurance obstacle course that often includes human fears like fire, water, electricity, heights, and more. There's a lot of people who think that they get older and they just have to sit down and quit. It's not so, Wilson said. I just enjoy them. I've always enjoyed competition. Along with competing in the events, Wilson uses them to raise money to build freshwater wells

in Africa. Her and her son are competing this year and say their goal is to raise $5,000. KFVS 12 has the story. There's a link to it in today's newsletter. All right, everybody. That is it for today's podcast. Like I said at the top, we are off tomorrow and Monday. Enjoying the long four-day weekend. You should go do the same.

We'll be right back here on Tuesday. In your ears. We're looking forward to it. Have a good weekend. Peace. Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who also helped create our logo. The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn and music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. The flu remains a serious disease.

Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.