what is is critical to understanding biden s words here. back in august, president biden said we would respond if there s an attack on taiwan. two months after that, he said the u.s. had a commitment to if it were invaded by china, and now we have these comments in which he says he would be willing to defend taiwan militarily, intervene militarily, were china to invade. those comments unambiguous without any caveat, and yet white house official, as you said, now saying that the u.s. s policy towards china has not changed. if you listen to those words, it certainly seems like perhaps the one china policy, which president biden reiterated remains in place, but the policy of strategic ambiguity, this motion that it s not clear whether or not the u.s. would russia to taiwan s aid militarily were china to invade seems to be tossed out by the president of the united states. china, as you said, is firing
jerome powell is who we should be looking too. unfortunately they don t have daily briefings. the white house does. it s just as big in the u.s., as the imf director alluded to, there s a confluence of calamities them say russia s invasion of ukraine compounded the covid-19 pandemicing a crisis upon a crisis, devastating lives, dragging down growth, pushing up inflation. add to this the sharply increased volatility in financial markets and the threat of climate change, and we face a potential confluence of calamities. politically speaking as you were saying, poll suggest americans are holding president biden responsible for this. absolutely they are, and you know, when you re the encumbent president, facing an election, especially a midterm election, the country s problems become your problems. there s simply no avoiding that. bill clinton found that out, ronald reagan found that out, barack obama found that out, and now joe biden is as well. that is a correct assessment.
militarily to defend taiwan if it comes to that? yes. you are? that s the commitment we made. now, a white house official be the pentagon tried to walk back the president s comments, insisting the decades old policy of strategic ambiguity has not changed. but the defense secretary had a different explanation than the president when asked if biden s comments could mean putting troops on the ground. putting troops on the ground defend taiwan? our one china policy has not changed. we reiterated that policy in our commitment to peace and stability across the taiwan strait. cnn s jeremy diamond is in tokyo. this is not the first time that president biden said something like this about taiwan. reporter: that s right, alison. it s certainly not, and that is
going to be able to deter violence, and we shouldn t kid ourselves. if we stood by and china, through the use of force, gained control of taiwan, does anyone think we would have anything left of an alliance system in asia? does anyone think countries like japan would not go ahead and develop nuclear weapons? so sure, there s potential risks and costs in doing this, but people also have the weigh the costs and risks of not going in this direction. i want to ask you about another possible development, this one in ukraine, and that is that we have information the biden administration is considering sending special forces to protect the embassy in kyiv. would that be mission creep? i don t think so. they would have a limited mission, purview, self-defense of the embassy staff. the numbers would be too small to get involved in anything larger. so this is not the advance element of american military intervention. sometimes things are just what you say they are.
is a unilateral implementation of the policy on our side. we ll continue the adhere to the one china policy. this doesn t change that. china meantime increased the force it could use against taiwan. they haven t been standing still. i see no reason why we should standstill, as things have changed over the last 40 years. you understand politics and white house politics. why does this keep surprising the president s aides? . [ laughter ] actually, i i m with the president. i think his aides should stand down. never looks good to have this kind of become and forth to begin with. it weakens deterrents. doesn t give allies a ton of confident. but again, i think the president s right. for those who say, why are you directly helping ukraine? why are you offering this with taiwan? i think it s important to remember that in this case the allies and neighbor of taiwan actually want us to make this