A foreign policy expert said that President Biden’s decision to wait and see what Russia does in the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine signals a bystander in chief strategy that might empower China’s President Xi Jinping to undertake his own forceful action against Taiwan.
The Taiwan Ministry of Defense reported Thursday that nine Chinese aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense zone on the day Russian President Vladimir Putin dispatched soldiers to attack Ukraine. President Biden is not taking the correct approach to prevent a hypothetical Chinese strike, according to James Jay Carafano, a national security and foreign policy fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
Carafano cautioned that Biden is a risk averse individual. He waits for the enemy to act before attempting to retaliate.
We’re waiting for the Chinese to decide what they want to do and when they want to do it. This is where we went wrong with Putin.
Carafano did not forecast whether Xi would attack Taiwan, which China considers a historic part of the People’s Republic of China in the same way that Putin considers Ukraine a historic part of Russia, but he did indicate that Biden is letting Xi decide the terms of any prospective involvement.
Biden stated in October that the US would defend Taiwan if China attacked. No one should underestimate the Chinese people’s great resolve, determination, and capability to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity, according to a representative for the Chinese foreign ministry. There is no room for compromise in China.
Carafano believes that Chinese jets in Taiwanese airspace could indicate whether the country is preparing for war or not, but that Biden’s poor reaction is exacerbating the problem.
