president biden insisting u.s policy
towards taiwan has not changed after the
white house immediately walked back his
comments yesterday the president said if
china attacked taiwan the u.s would
defend the island militarily senator dom
cotton is a member of the senate armed
services and intelligence committee sir
when
the united states has had this idea of
strategic ambiguity for a long time is
it time to put that aside and actually
deal with the issue more straight on and
in a clarified manner
good morning dana and yes it is um the
policy that joe biden seems to have
stumbled on yesterday or for that matter
two times in the past two other times in
the past nine months is the correct
policy for the united states now china
is our number one competitor taiwan is
the most dangerous flash point in the
world for many years we had so-called
strategic ambiguity because the chinese
military is not capable of executing the
invasion of taiwan that's not the case
anymore so the best way to deter war
over taiwan before it happens is
strategic clarity to make it absolutely
clear that the united states will come
to taiwan's aid
unfortunately what we've seen with
president biden now three times in nine
months is not strategic ambiguity or
strategic clarity it's muddled and
confused ambiguity on three times
president biden has seemed to change u.s
policy only to have anonymous white
house staff immediately correct him it
is the worst of both worlds dana because
it gets provocation without deterrence
you can see how it provoked beijing
yesterday in their intemperate response
but beijing probably doesn't think that
joe biden is really willing to go
defend taiwan given the fact that he
allows his anonymous aides to rush out
and change it this is the worst of all
possible worlds
senators martha mccallum good to have
you with us this morning this is the
reaction
from the chinese state council's taiwan
affairs office it says the u.s is quote
using the taiwan card to contain china
and will itself get burned and there's a
number of editorials this morning both
in the journal and in the post that
suggest that if the president is going
to answer these questions this way that
we would be in a defensive military mode
for taiwan that there's a lot that needs
to be done to prepare us for that kind
of potential confrontation and defense
do you agree
i do agree martha again i think the
president should clean up this mess
himself as i said yesterday
since he's made this mistake three times
now in nine months with his white house
staff cleaning up immediately he needs
to give a careful deliberate speech from
a prepared text that he releases in
advance that makes it perfectly clear to
the entire world most importantly
beijing that the united states new
policy is strategic clarity that we will
come to taiwan's aid now words are not
enough as you suggest we also need to
substantially increase our defense
budget especially to increase the kinds
of weapon systems that we would need to
deter china in the western pacific we
also need the taiwanese to work with us
to step up their military readiness for
instance making sure they have the kind
of weapons that we've been rushing to
ukraine in the last three months since
we're started in advance and making sure
that their military has a large and
capable reserve force exactly the kind
of reserve army that countries like
israel or finland have because they are
next to large aggressive neighbors as
well those are the steps we need to take
in addition to making this policy change
but it starts with joe biden but being
perfectly clear without any confusion at
all that this is the united states
policy otherwise as i said we have the
worst of both worlds provocation without
deterrence senator i do maybe i'll give
you an opportunity here just to explain
what is the united states strategic
national interest here like why does it
matter so much to us about taiwan why
would we want to have this
understanding the chinese uh is our
number one
adversary or enemy even you could say
but for people out there wondering so
what is different about taiwan than any
other country
well china is our number one enemy in
the world that's one difference second
taiwan is geographically vital to access
to the western pacific where so much of
our economic prosperity is based if
china can take taiwan it has what
douglas macarthur called an unsinkable
aircraft carrier that gets it outside
the so-called first allen chain where we
have so many partners and bases places
like south korea and japan and the
philippines moreover taiwan is an
advanced industrial democracy which has
a company that produces the most
high-tech semiconductor chips in the
world it's the only place right now
those chips are made if china were to
get its hands on that it would threaten
the prosperity of all americans and
finally if china were able to seize
taiwan there's no telling where it would
stop again that's a much harder
operation than threats on land because
it has to go across the taiwanese
straight so if the united states stand
by and let's execute the hardest
military operation then it would imperil
all of our partners across east and
south asia senator tom cotton for us
this morning thank you for being here
thank you senator i went on brian
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