Fox Op-ed: Biden Needs to Clarify His Taiwan Policy ASAP

A combination of clear messaging and military readiness is our best hope to deter China and preserve peace across the Taiwan Straits.

This op-ed was first published at Fox News.

Photo of Taiwan by Rovin Ferrer on Unsplash

As China’s military claimed it’s “ready to fight” and French President Macron urged  Europe to stay neutral in the event of China’s invasion of Taiwan and not to follow the U.S. lead, President Biden must clarify his Taiwan policy to the American People and America’s allies. 

Anyone who believes that the U.S. should remain strategically ambiguous about whether it will come to Taiwan’s defense so as not to “provoke” China doesn’t understand the thinking of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and especially its current leader, Xi Jinping. 

Although the CCP never ruled Taiwan, its obsession with the self-governing island is rooted in the party’s insecurity - the CCP wants to be the only party that governs China and sees Taiwan as a threat to the party’s legitimacy. After China’s ruling Nationalist Party lost the Civil War (1945-1949) to the CCP and fled to Taiwan, the CCP’s leader Mao Tse-tung planned to i…