What if Communist China Invades Taiwan?

On Thursday, October 21, President Biden, at a CNN “Town Hall” meeting in Baltimore, hosted by CNN cable news ‘anchor,’ Anderson Cooper, was asked about Taiwan.

“Are you saying that the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense if China attacked?” with an unambiguous answer, “Yes. Yes, we have a commitment to do that.”

The People’s Republic of China’s spokesman Wang Wenbin responded immediately:

“No one should underestimate the determination and the capacity of the Chinese people to maintain [China’s] sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

American politics was roiled by the 1949 victory of China’s Communist Party over Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang government and American voters were asked “Who Lost China?”

American politicians reacted by saying “Not me.”

In late December 1978 President Jimmy Carter granted formal diplomatic recognition to the PRC and relations with the anti-Communist Republic of China on Taiwan were formalized by the Taiwan Relations Act.

The Taiwan Relations Act states that “the United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capabilities”.

The Act does not commit the United States to repel an invasion of the Republic of China. In the vernacular, last night President Joe Biden “put his foot into it.”