If Biden decides to give increased diplomatic recognition to Taiwan, he risks lighting the touchpaper to war with China
By Tom Fowdy, 13 Sep 2021
Last week Biden called Xi Jinping. My analysis of that event was that it was a political blow to Biden, as he had been pushed into it by Beijing demanding respect and leveraging contact. The political fallout of having that conversation has since been obvious domestically in America.
Just the following day a series of hawkish proposals got leaked to the Financial Times, claiming that the Foreign Minister of Taiwan Joseph Wu was in America for ‘secret’ talks over the potential renaming of Taipei's representative office in the United States (its de facto embassy) to include the name ‘Taiwan’ – a move which the Baltic state of Lithuania pursued earlier this year, drawing the ire of Beijing. The Financial Times article claims that Washington, DC is contemplating a similar move,
but the catch is that it would have to be done via an executive order. It’s the president’s choice.
Also on the same day, another proposal was leaked, stating that the administration was
seeking to escalate its trade war and tariffs against China. It is likely just noise, but the pattern and timing of these emergence is obvious. These hawkish proposals suddenly hit the press for several reasons:
firstly as a face-saving means for the administration so as to not to be seen as ‘soft’ on China;
secondly, they were likely leaked by hawkish members of the administration who want to undermine engagement between Washington and Beijing, and hope the radical proposals ‘set the agenda’ and provoke China. Kurt Campbell, Biden’s ‘Asia Tsar’, is undoubtedly one of the suspects here.
It is a
typical MO (Modus Operandi) in Washington insider games:
to float their agendas in the media and hope to capture the public mood. Such tactics were frequently deployed during the Trump administration, where, despite the White House taking a hard line with China, individuals such as Mike Pompeo, Peter Navarro and Matthew Pottinger all occasionally pushed far more radical proposals via the media.
Thus while these Biden administration proposals may not actually happen, they all go towards illustrating the
political constraints and realities the president faces. He has effectively been boxed into a confrontational policy towards Beijing, even if he doesn't want it personally. This makes de-escalation of tensions very difficult.
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Neocons Undermine Biden on China Ties. Brief Media on Taiwan Talks, Beijing Threatens War
By Alexander Mercouris, 13 Sep 2021
