Did the Democrats really think that they would be able to hide from the world the fact that the ostensible president of the United States is suffering from marked cognitive decline and often barely even coherent?
Biden’s handlers certainly have gone to great pains to hide their Oval Office puppet’s condition, severely limiting his access to the press, giving him scripted answers to scripted questions when he does face the gaggle of sycophants known as the White House press corps, and ensuring that anyone who might actually dare to ask a genuine and pointed question is kept as far away from the so-called president as possible.
Even all that, however, is not enough. The Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party organ, on Wednesday published an extensive analysis of Biden’s position on Taiwan that came down to a simple principle: Old Joe is liable to say anything, so his words shouldn’t be taken seriously.
The latest confusion over Biden’s statements arose after his three-and-a-half-hour Zoom call on Monday with Xi Jinping, the president of the People’s Republic of China. The White House’s terse six-paragraph “Readout” of this marathon discussion made it clear that Biden was backing off from his Oct. 21 statement that the U.S. would defend Taiwan militarily if it was attacked by the People’s Republic. The “Readout” recorded Biden’s walk back in the tone of a student having to write “I will not talk in class” on the blackboard a hundred times: “On Taiwan,” it said, “President Biden underscored that the United States remains committed to the ‘one China’ policy, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the three Joint Communiques, and the Six Assurances, and that the United States strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
In other words, the Taiwanese are on their own. That was that, except that Biden almost immediately muddied the waters again. The day after the Zoom call with Xi, Biden said: “We have made very clear we support the Taiwan Act, and that’s it. It’s independent. It makes its own decisions.”
The People’s Republic doesn’t consider Taiwan to be independent but regards it as a renegade province within their own domains. So Biden’s declaration that it was “independent” was seen as a significant policy statement. As the CCP’s Global Times put it, “Biden’s ambiguous statement on the Taiwan question triggered self-deceiving interpretations in the island that Washington may be sending pro-secession signals.” The alleged president complicated the situation even further when he attempted to clarify his earlier remarks by saying: “I said that they have to decide — Taiwan, not us. We are not encouraging independence.”