To judge, one must go back to the reasons for the policy. Wikipedia has a good summarization, “it is designed to dissuade Taiwan from a unilateral declaration of independence, and to dissuade the PRC from unilaterally unifying Taiwan with the PRC”.
To the extent being more straightforward the US will defend Taiwan prevents Beijing from any misconceptions they can use force and the US won’t respond with force, that is good.
Its the other arm that the administration (and future administrations) need to pay attention to. This is not an idle risk, there’s an independence leaning President in power; and the issue of independence is one of the dividing lines in Taiwan society. Any careless action can easily snowball to cross redlines and spark a conflict — which even if the US “wins”, would still be a massive loss.
A small complaint, as Wikipedia states, strategic ambiguity was created and codified in Congress through the Taiwan Relations Act. A reason for the act was to ensure the President couldn’t unilaterally change Taiwan policy like Carter had done by killing the US Taiwan mutual defense treaty. The right way to adjust policy is to update the Taiwan Relations Act, it some sense not hard because Taiwan policy is relatively bipartisan currently, but in other senses is impossible because the risk of fueling hostility between China and US.
To judge, one must go back to the reasons for the policy. Wikipedia has a good summarization, “it is designed to dissuade Taiwan from a unilateral declaration of independence, and to dissuade the PRC from unilaterally unifying Taiwan with the PRC”.
To the extent being more straightforward the US will defend Taiwan prevents Beijing from any misconceptions they can use force and the US won’t respond with force, that is good.
Its the other arm that the administration (and future administrations) need to pay attention to. This is not an idle risk, there’s an independence leaning President in power; and the issue of independence is one of the dividing lines in Taiwan society. Any careless action can easily snowball to cross redlines and spark a conflict — which even if the US “wins”, would still be a massive loss.
A small complaint, as Wikipedia states, strategic ambiguity was created and codified in Congress through the Taiwan Relations Act. A reason for the act was to ensure the President couldn’t unilaterally change Taiwan policy like Carter had done by killing the US Taiwan mutual defense treaty. The right way to adjust policy is to update the Taiwan Relations Act, it some sense not hard because Taiwan policy is relatively bipartisan currently, but in other senses is impossible because the risk of fueling hostility between China and US.
Dont think it actually matters that much. I think China has noticed all of the anti-China rhetoric out of the US for the last 10 years.
Steve