The Daily Signal - With Beijing Breathing Down Taiwan’s Neck, What Signal Did Biden Just Send?

Episode Date: May 24, 2022

In Japan on Monday, President Joe Biden seemingly departed from previous American policy regarding Taiwan, announcing that the U.S. would militarily defend the tiny island nation if China were to invade. Walter Lohman, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, says Biden's statement was a huge mistake. "We want to keep the Chinese guessing about what the United States would do," he says of the long-standing policy of "strategic ambiguity." Lohman joins the show to discuss what the implications of this seeming shift in policy would be, and what Beijing’s aims are regarding Taiwan. We also cover these stories: Following Democrats' claims that new election laws in Georgia would depress voter turnout, more Georgians are voting ahead of Tuesday's primaries than ever. Biden says he doesn't think monkeypox will be as serious as COVID-19. An early draft of a letter sent to the president by the National School Boards Association suggests the group planned to ask that the Army National Guard and military police be sent to certain school districts to handle parents protesting mandatory masking and controversial curriculums. State Farm insurance company is encouraging employees to donate books on transgenderism to local schools and libraries in Florida and elsewhere around the country. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, May 24th. I'm President Allen. And I'm Doug Blair. During a recent trip to Japan, President Biden seemingly departed from previous American policy towards Taiwan and announced America would militarily defend the tiny island if China were to invade. But is this the right policy decision for the U.S.? Director at the Heritage Foundation's Asian Study Center, Walter Lohman, joins the show today to discuss what the implications of this massive shift in policy would be and what China's goals

are in Taiwan. But before we get to Doug's conversation with Walter Lohman, let's hit our top news stories of the day. Georgians are headed to the polls today for a midterm primary election, but the big news coming into this election is the record number of early votes. More than 875,000 ballots were cast in Georgia during the three weeks of early voting. That's three times as many as were cast early in Georgia's 2018 primary election. Keep in mind that, that last year, Georgia passed election reform legislation that was intended to make it easier for people to vote and harder to cheat. The legislation was heavily criticized by those on the left, resulting in the MLB moving its all-star game from Atlanta. In March of last year, Biden called Georgia's election reform bill Jim Crow in the 21st century.

Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger says the high turnout in early votes is a testament to the affected of the election integrity reform the state passed last year. Raffensberger said he promised to strike a strong balance between access and security in our elections, and the early poll numbers show that voters have confidence in Georgia's elections. But some on the left say the high early vote count does not mean voters did not face challenges. Richard Hasson is a law professor at the University of California Irvine, and he told the New York Times that just because Turner's, is up doesn't mean that voters face no hurdles. It could well mean that voters

overcame those hurdles, and that means that time and money were put into efforts to assure that voters could overcome those hurdles. Turnout at the polls is expected to remain high today as Georgians vote for their governor, Secretary of State, and several other key races. And an about-face from his comments on Sunday, President Biden said Monday, he doesn't think monkey pox will be as serious as COVID-19 per CNN. Originally, the president said that everybody should be concerned about monkey pox, but his attitude shifted the next day. Here's Biden via the Hill.

We've had this monkeypox from the larger numbers in the past, number one. Number two, we have vaccines to care for it to take care of it. Number three, there is, thus far, there doesn't seem to be a need for, for any kind of extra effort beyond what's going on. And so I just don't think it rises to the level of the kind of concern that existed with COVID-19 and the smallpox vaccine works for it. So, but I think people should be careful. CDC officials are currently monitoring a few cases of monkeypox in the U.S.

Think back to September 2021. Remember the National School Board's Association led to. to the Biden administration asking for an investigation into whether parents' actions at school board meetings could be classified as domestic terrorism. Well, a draft version of that letter has surfaced in which the association asked the Biden administration to deploy Army National Guard and military police. Well, a draft version of that letter has surfaced in which the association asked the Biden administration to deploy Army National Guard and military police to certain school districts. Evidence suggests that the National School Board Association worked with the White House in writing

the letter. The draft version of the letter read, we ask that the Army National Guard and its military police be deployed to certain school districts and related events where students and school personnel have been subjected to acts and threats of violence. Of course, the final version of the letter remove this language. Insurance provider State Farm is stepping into the culture wars. According to corporate whistleblower organization, consumers research, the company is encouraging its employees in Florida to donate a package of three kids' books about transgenderism and gender identity to local public elementary schools and libraries.

The three books are a kid's book about being transgender, a kid's book about being non-binary, and a kid's book about being inclusive. and are being distributed via State Farm in partnership with LGBT advocacy group, The Gender Cool Project. According to consumers' research, State Farm Corporate Responsibility Analyst Jose Soto sent an email attempting to recruit six State Farm insurance agents in Florida to get these books in March, then donate them to their community by the end of April. The Washington Examiner reported that State Farm has denied program participants

or being asked to share the materials with schools. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Walter Lohman as we discuss China and Taiwan. Americans use firearms to defend themselves between 500,000 and 2 million times every year. But God forbid that my mother is ever faced with a scenario where she has to stop a threat to her life. But if she is, I hope politicians protected by professional armed security didn't strip her of the right to use the firearm she can handle most competently. To watch the rest of Heritage expert Amy Swearer's testimony on assault weapons before the House Judiciary Committee, head to the Heritage Foundation YouTube channel. There you'll find talks, events, and documentaries, backed with the reputation of the nation's most broadly supported Public Policy Research Institute. Start watching now at heritage.org slash YouTube.

And don't forget to subscribe and share. My guest today is Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Study Center here at at the Heritage Foundation. Walter, welcome to the show. Glad to be here. Thank you. We just heard from President Biden, who announced while he was on a trip to Japan, that the U.S. would intervene militarily to protect Taiwan if it was to come to that. Is this in line with previous American policy towards Taiwan as the White House later tried to claim? No, it's not.

I mean, I think what the White House was trying to do was to contain the damage from what the president said. So, no, our policy for the last 40 years has been one of ambiguity. That is what Donald Trump said the best, actually, was the Chinese know what I will do without spelling it out to hold out there the possibility that the U.S. would come to Taiwan's defense, but not to say it explicitly. So, no, it wasn't in keeping with current policy. It wasn't keeping with previous policy. It was the White House trying to correct the record. Now, you use the word damage. So clearly this doesn't seem to be a good.

announcement from the Biden administration? No, because we want to keep the Chinese guessing about what the United States would do. And we want to keep Taiwan guessing to some extent also because as much as we love Taiwan, and personally, I would like to see us defend Taiwan if ever came to that. I think there would be a case for that and we'd have to make that case. But we don't want a foreign power, whether it's Taiwan or Japan or the UK or our best friends in the world. We don't want them to be the ones to be able to pull the trigger on the use of American force. We decide. So if we put it in their hands to create the conditions under

which we might go to war, we're essentially ceding our authority to go to war. It might be helpful then. As we reference the fact that this is a departure from general American policy towards Taiwan, what has been traditionally America's view towards Taiwan? Well, since 1979, when we recognized the People's Republic of China as the sole government of China represented in the United Nations, et cetera, our policy has been an unofficial one with Taiwan. So we recognize that the Chinese think that Taiwan is a part of China, but we don't recognize that Taiwan is a part of China.

So it's a very complicated kind of formula we came up with, but it was one. one that allowed us to reconcile with China, move forward, and do some cooperative things, and at the same time continue to protect Taiwan. So we never want to be in a position of making that too clear for fear of, you know, roiling the atmosphere in the region. We started out with, obviously, if I know my history, we would try to acknowledge the Republic of China, which was Taiwan, as the sole authority. for the Chinese government.

And then that sort of evolved into recognizing the People's Republic. Has it evolved since then where we... Essentially, no. I mean, so Jimmy Carter made the decision in 1979 to drop Taiwan, to no longer recognize Taiwan or the Republic of China, no longer recognize that as the sole representative of China and instead recognize the People's Republic of China, communist China. He made that decision to do that. That was the big break.

Since then, our policy has really been one of really guided by something called the Taiwan Relations Act, which is that we will maintain unofficial relationship with Taiwan, closest that Taiwan has with any important country in the world really and we'll sell it the arms that it needs to defend itself. And along with that comes a tentative commitment or not really a commitment, but we want to give the the impression we would come to Taiwan's aid if we need it. But we never overly explicit about it, again, because to be overly explicit about it gives the Taiwanese who, as great as they are, and as ever as much we want to protect their freedom, we don't want them to decide the circumstances under which we go to war.

Given that we know the American position, or at least what has traditionally been towards Taiwan, what is China's position towards Taiwan? Well, from China's perspective, Taiwan is a part of China and not just part of China. but part of the People's Republic of China, that it doesn't have its own independent basis. So our position is that it's practically speaking independent. And it is. For all intents and purposes, Taiwan is independent. But China wants to change that and make it sort of legally, operationally, a part of China in a real way. And our effort is to prevent that from ever happening.

Now, I guess one of the things that we keep hearing is a comparison from the administration that this is a very similar situation to what we're seeing in Ukraine, where a larger power, in this case, Russia would be invading the smaller power of Ukraine, flop that with China and Taiwan. Is that accurate? I don't think it's accurate. I think just the task of it is very, very different. So you've got a body of water between Taiwan and China. We used to call it in the old days before China developed such a sophisticated military, the million-man swim because the Chinese would have no way of getting across the straits.

Now they have more capability to get across the straits, but still an extraordinarily complicated legal maneuver. It would be the equivalent of Hannibal crossing the Alps for the Chinese to land an invasion. force the size that it would need to take Taiwan across the Taiwan Strait. So I think it's a very different sort of situation than what the Ukrainians are facing in Russia. The other difference is that the Taiwanese are very well-equipped, well-trained military, and they have a constant supplier already from the United States. I think Donald Trump finished his term having given them, I think, $16 billion in arms now. And important to say not given them, sold them.

They buy the weapons that we give them. They buy very sophisticated weapons, F-16 fighter jets, for example, Abrams tanks. They buy real stuff and they know how to operate it. So actually, that's another point of comparison then. If let's say that the Chinese do plan to invade Taiwan, is the strategy that the U.S. adopts similar to what we're doing in Ukraine, where we provide them with arms and sanctions? No. No, no.

our policy would be to come to Taiwan's defense. But it's different to have that policy and to know that that's what it's going to happen, then to say it. And that was the problem that Biden made. Again, the president that got this the clearest, and he wasn't a man known for his clarity, in fact, but Donald Trump really nailed this in the summer of 2020 when he was asked, what would you do if this happened?

if China made a move on Taiwan. And he said, China knows what I would do. And he was pressed to, can you be more specific? And he said, I don't want to be more specific. China knows what I would do. It's the perfect summary and the clearest language of what our policy on Taiwan and the prospects of us going to war there is.

Given that it seems like it would very difficult for a Chinese invasion to successfully conquer Taiwan. It seems like you mentioned that. even with the technology that they have now, there are still a lot of logistical issues. Is there a possibility that a separate way of conquering the island, maybe through subterfuge, economically? Absolutely. Absolutely. And in fact, that's the Chinese preferred route.

And they've been working on that for 70 years. You know, ever since the Republic of China found a refuge on that island, they have been working to get it back. And so in modern times, let's say within the last, especially within the last 10, 15 years, years, they have used all kinds of technology to do these things to infiltrate social networks, to infiltrate the media, to constantly be streaming messages about Taiwan's eventual collapse, about how the U.S. can't be trusted, all these sorts of things to affect the political environment in Taiwan.

So Taiwan itself is a divided society. half of Taiwan wants to be independent. The other half wants some kind of reconciliation with the mainland. So the Chinese effort is to benefit the reconcilable part of that and to get them elected to office and eventually bring Taiwan in that way and they can do that by using, like I said, the subterfuge that you referenced and social media and all sorts of things. but also through intimidation. That's what these flights that they conduct near Taiwan

are all about, hundreds of flights, hundreds of planes at a time, military planes at a time trying to intimidate Taiwan to create this atmosphere of inevitability that Taiwan will become a part of China. You said it's about 50-50, where some of the people want to reconcile with China and some of them want to be independent. Have we seen those numbers shift in the years since?

Not really. By 50-50-50, I mean, sort of as reflected in the political environment. So you have two main camps. They call them blue and green. Blue is more conciliatory to China. And green is more in favor of independence. But in opinion polls, the vast majority of Taiwanese just want to continue like things are,

independent, practically speaking, and just continuing to run their lives, not part of China, not being conquered by China, but also not promoting. invoking China. You know, the president of Taiwan always says that when she's asked about Taiwan independence, she always, and she's an independence advocate, or that's what she made her career on before she became president. The point she always makes is Taiwan already is independent. And it is from all practical purposes, it is independent. So what would they gain from demanding that China recognize them as independent or that the U.S. recognize them or anyone else? In fact, it would provoke China. And so the vast majority of Taiwanese just want to continue forever in this sort of

status quo situation. I have a bit of a long-term question here. There's a couple of different levels to it. So what would the consequences of a Chinese takeover of Taiwan first off before Taiwan? Oh, it would be terrible for Taiwan. I mean, look at what's unfolding in Hong Kong. You would have the same thing in Taiwan. Taiwan is a very vibrant democracy and a liberal democracy at that. I mean, lots of liberal freedoms, all the same liberal freedoms anyone in Europe or the United States has, that would all end. I mean, it's freer than Hong Kong was three years ago, 10 years ago. And so it would be a complete shutdown of that for Taiwan. No more competitive elections, no

more freedom of speech, no more freedom of the press, no more freedom of religion. It would be a catastrophe for Taiwan. And then to sort of expand on that, what would the consequences be for the U.S.? For the U.S., it's a big strategic issue beyond the moral cause. There's a moral cause here, but there's a big strategic problem because the Chinese would control the whole island chain that goes down the east coast of China and would then be able to project power out from there deep into the Pacific all the way to the U.S.-specific coast. As it is now, China is kind of blocked in by this island chain.

They call it the first island chain. There's also this issue of Taiwan's place in international supply chains. They make the majority of the world's semiconductors and we're in a bind right now when semiconductor supplies but even when this supply shortage resolves itself in the next 18 months or so, still going to need a lot of chips. You know, we don't need the Chinese coming in and destroying capacity. So it's strategic in that sense, too. I guess that does kind of lead me to another question, where is this still about an ancestral

claim to Taiwan and a sort of post-war civil war claim to we need to have all of China? Or is it now more about the economics? I think it's more the former. I mean, just in that the communists anyway have always maintained that Taiwan. as a part of China and that it's a part of China going back for centuries, millennia, and that they're in their right to take it back. I mean, you know, there's a lot of sort of concocted history around these things. You can debate that.

You can dispute it. But that's the official line of the Chinese Communist Party and they will maintain that. I think the economic side of it is a new facet. But, you know, think about what would be involved of an invasion. invasion of Taiwan, it's not like seizing an oil field, seizing of chip fabrication facility. You ever seen the people working in there with the suits on, you know, the completely hazmat type thing? I mean, you're not going to be able to take over a semiconductor facility and then run it under

the point of a gun, right? So it's really not in China's interest either to see that capacity destroyed and they can't effectively seize it. You can't force people to do this kind of high technology, highly skilled labor under the point of a gun. Tats out of the bag, this is the sort of as we wrap up here, since we know that Biden has said this and the White House is going to try and change it, but I think the world has sort of seen what the position is. Where do we go from here? I think we have to just understand the context that the president made those comments. It's not ideal, but our best bet here is to go with the clarification and not with what President

Biden said himself. You know, again, I want to sort of make clear that personally, I am for the United States defending Taiwan if it ever came to that. And I make that point a lot, and I have made it for 20 years that the U.S. should come to the defense of Taiwan. I've been all for selling them arms over the years. again, selling them arms that they buy and they spend over 2% of their GDP on defense. So they're doing their part to arm themselves.

But me saying all that, especially saying that the U.S. should defend Taiwan, is different than the President of the United States saying that because he's the one that commands the troops. He's the commander in chief. And when he says it, it is a commitment. So I think we need to try to facilitate the White House's effort to walk back those comments, you know, and sort of it's a famous, well, what the president meant to say type of situation. He actually said the same thing back in October, almost in exactly the same words.

I think it'd be given them too much credit to think that it was a strategy of some sort. I think he just misspoke and he miss spoke twice the exact same way. So I think we have to continue doing everything we can for Taiwan to keep them safe and prosperous for the reasons that we just talked about. say that we have strategic interest in that, but also for moral cause on behalf of the Taiwanese. We have to continue to stay close to that even as we criticize the president for not choosing his words as carefully as he should have to avoid conflict. Because I want to keep Taiwan free and prosperous and secure.

I'd rather not go to war. And so the president's comments actually make more likely, not make it less likely. That was Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Study Center here at the Heritage Foundation. Walter, thank you so much for your time. Glad to be here. Thank you. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal podcast.

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