What Biden's Taiwan comments mean for China and the US

While in Tokyo on Monday, a reporter asked President Joe Biden if the U.S. would defend Taiwan. The president’s response, "Yes." When pressed, Biden reiterated, "That’s the commitment we made."

Biden elaborated that, "The idea that (Taiwan) can be taken by force, just taken by force, it’s just not appropriate. It would dislocate the entire region and be another action similar to what happened in Ukraine. And so it’s a burden that is even stronger."

Biden’s statement riled diplomats in D.C. and communist bosses in Beijing with a White House spokesman once again pressed into clean up duty, saying, "…our policy has not changed."

The People’s Republic of China considers the self-ruled island nation of Taiwan to be one of its provinces even though the Chinese Communist Party has never ruled there.

The U.S. has a stronger security pledge to Taiwan, via the Taiwan Relations Act passed by Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, than it made to Ukraine in 1994. But America’s commitment to protect Taiwan from any attempt by China to take the island...