Joe Biden’s advisers say he doesn’t want to drag Pacific allies into ‘headlong clash’ between US and China

Senior White House offi­cial says pres­i­dent hears region’s con­cerns and ‘does not want con­flict’ with Chi­na Joe Biden’s senior advis­ers have acknowl­edged coun­tries in the Indo-Pacif­ic don’t want to be “tram­pled by a head­long clash” between the US and Chi­na. In a webi­nar with an Aus­tralian audi­ence on Fri­day, senior White House nation­al secu­ri­ty coun­cil (NSC) officials…

China cannot stop other world leaders visiting Taiwan, says Nancy Pelosi

Chi­na can­not stop oth­er world lead­ers vis­it­ing Tai­wan, says Nan­cy Pelosi US House speak­er leaves island as Chi­na orders live-fire drills off coast 02:13 The US House speak­er, Nan­cy Pelosi, has said Bei­jing can­not pre­vent world lead­ers from trav­el­ling to Tai­wan, as she depart­ed from the island on Wednes­day to con­tin­ue her tour of Asia. In a…

But CAN the United States defend Taiwan?

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden has yet again stat­ed that if Chi­na attacked Tai­wan to reuni­fy what Bei­jing sees as a rene­gade province with the main­land, the Unit­ed States would come to Taiwan’s mil­i­tary defense. White House staff has again fol­lowed up these off-the-cuff pres­i­den­tial com­ments with a “clar­i­fi­ca­tion” that in fact, strate­gic ambi­gu­i­ty remains Amer­i­can pol­i­cy. Somewhat…