30 Tuesday May 24 2022 | the times
Wo r l d
Leaders of the Southern Baptist Con-
vention, America’s largest Protestant
church, conspired for almost two
decades to cover up sexual abuse and
smear victims, an inquiry has found.
Survivors of assault by clergymen re-
peatedly made allegations to its execu-
tive committee “only to be met, time
and time again, with resistance, stone-
walling and even outright hostility”, a
seven-month investigation found.
Cover-ups and denials allowed “con-
victed molesters” to continue acting in
trusted roles in the latest sex scandal to
engulf an influential church. Catholic
bishops in the US also tried to keep
abuse secret before The Boston Globe
published an investigation in 2002,
President Biden has said that the US
military would defend Taiwan against a
Chinese invasion, contradicting estab-
lished policy and setting out a clear
challenge to Beijing during his first visit
in office to east Asia.
In Tokyo, Biden said that one of the
reasons that President Putin must be
made to “pay a dear price” for his
invasion of Ukraine was to discourage
any Chinese attempt to unite Taiwan
with the mainland by force. Asked if the
US would defend Taiwan militarily in a
way that it has declined to do for
Ukraine, Biden told a press conference:
“Yes. That’s the commitment we made.
“We agree with the One China policy,
we signed onto it and all the attendant
agreements made from there. But the
idea that it [Taiwan] could be taken by
force, just taken by force, is just not, it’s
just not appropriate. It will dislocate the
entire region and be another action
similar to what happened in Ukraine.”
Washington’s One China policy is the
diplomatic acknowledgement of
Beijing’s position that there is only one
Chinese government. However, the US
does not endorse Beijing’s One China
principle, which insists that Taiwan
must be reunified with the mainland.
Standing beside Fumio Kishida, the
Japanese prime minister, Biden said that
a strong response to Putin’s “barbarism”
was essential. “It’s not just about
Ukraine,” he said. “If... after all [Putin’s]
done, there’s a rapprochement between
the Ukrainians and Russia and the
sanctions are not continued... then
what signal does that send to China
about the cost of attempting to take
Taiwan by force?”
Biden insisted that US policy on
Taiwan was unchanged. However, his
remarks suggested a commitment to
the military defence of Taiwan beyond
the established American position. The
US, like other countries that recognise
the One China principle, does not have
official relations with Taiwan. Washing-
ton is obliged by US law to provide the
island with the means to defend itself
but the question of what it would do in
the event of a Chinese invasion has been
left deliberately unclear. Such “strategic
ambiguity” is intended to preserve the
status quo by sowing doubt in the mind
of President Xi of China, while discour-
aging the Taiwanese from openly de-
claring independence.
The White House quickly moved to
limit the repercussions of Biden’s
remarks. “As the president said, our
policy has not changed,” a White House
official said. “He reiterated our One
China policy and our commitment to
peace and stability across the Taiwan
Strait. He also reiterated our commit-ment under the Taiwan Relations Act to
provide Taiwan with the military means
to defend itself.”
Biden warned against aggressive Chi-
nese military exercises close to Tai-
wanese territory. “They’re already flirt-
ing with danger now by flying so close
on all the manoeuvres that are under-
taken, but the US is committed,” he said.
“We stand firmly with Japan and othernations not to let that [an invasion]
happen. My expectation is it will not
happen.”
The Taiwanese foreign ministry
“sincerely welcomed” the remarks,
whereas a Chinese spokesman was in-
dignant. “China expresses strong dissat-
isfaction with and firm opposition to the
remarks,” Wang Wenbin said. “The Tai-
wan issue is purely China’s internalaffairs and cannot be interfered by any
external forces.”
Biden also announced the basis for a
new trade agreement between Pacific
countries. The Indo-Pacific Economic
Framework (Ipef) is intended as a sub-
stitute for the Trans-Pacific Partner-
ship, which was to have brought to-
gether 12 countries, including the US,
Japan, Vietnam and Peru, but excludingBiden: We will defend Taiwan
100m Chinese
United States
Richard Lloyd Parry To k y o
Nearly 100 million people in central
China are being told to take a corona-
virus PCR test every 48 hours in the lat-
est attempt to eradicate the country’s
coronavirus outbreak.
The tests will be free and are required
for the entire population of Henan
province, in the Yellow River valley, and
all visitors wishing to use public spaces
or transport.
China has already expanded its
national network of testing centres
under its “zero Covid” policy, which
requires mass testing and isolation
procedures in response to a single con-
firmed infection in an area.
Starting next week, Henan will beChina
Didi Tang BeijingPresident Biden said that he stood firmly with Fumio Kishida, the Japanese primeBaptist church covered up sex abuse for decades
leading to the exposure of widespread
misconduct and billion-dollar compen-
sation payouts to victims.
The Southern Baptist Church (SBC)
scandal was highlighted in a 2019 re-
port by the Houston Chronicle and San
Antonio Express-News, documenting
hundreds of cases in Texan churches,
including several in which the alleged
perpetrators remained in the ministry.
The church claims to have more than
13 million members in the United States
and more than 40 million worldwide.
Thousands of delegates to the
national SBC meeting last year pressed
for an investigation, which was carried
out by Guidepost Solutions.
The independent company made
clear that it did not want the executive
committee to oversee it. The 288-pagereport says: “Our investigation re-
vealed that, for many years, a few senior
[executive committee] leaders, along
with outside counsel, largely controlled
the EC’s response to these reports of
abuse... and were singularly focused on
avoiding liability for the SBC.
“In service of this goal, survivors and
others who reported abuse were
ignored, disbelieved or met with the
constant refrain that the SBC could
take no action due to its policy regard-
ing church autonomy, even if it meant
that convicted molesters continued in
ministry with no notice or warning to
their current church or congregation.”
The report says an executive com-
mittee staff member had a list of Baptist
ministers accused of abuse but there
was no indication anyone “took anyaction to ensure that the accused minis-
ters were no longer in positions of
power at SBC churches”.
The list included hundreds of abusers
thought to be affiliated at some point
with the SBC. Survivors and advocates
have long called for a public database.
Ed Litton, the SBC president, said in
a statement that he was “grieved to my
core” for the victims. He called on
Southern Baptists to lament and pre-
pare to change the culture in the
denomination. “I pray Southern Bap-
tists will begin preparing to take delib-
erate action to address these failures
and chart a new course when we meet
together in Anaheim,” Litton said, re-
ferring to the city in California that will
host the church’s national conference
on June 14-15.David Charter Washington
US pivot
to Asia is
still elusive
Analysis
S
ince China
began to
emerge as a
military, as
well as
economic, giant in the
early 21st century, the
idea of an American
“pivot to Asia” has
seemed little more
than common sense
(Richard Lloyd Parry
writes). After a
20th century focused
on Europe, it seemed
obvious that the time
had come for the
United States to shift
its diplomatic
attention and military
resources across the
Pacific.
Asia contains 60
per cent of the world’s
population, its most
dynamic economies
and its fastest-growing
military powers. But
American leaders
who have attempted
to “rebalance” their
global strategy have
failed, foiled by
domestic politics and
international crises in
traditional zones of
US engagement from
which they have triedto extricate
themselves.
President Biden is
the latest incumbent
of the White House
who wants to do the
right thing in Asia but
finds himself deeply
enmeshed elsewhere.
His tour of South
Korea and Japan is a
game attempt to
persuade Asians that
the US genuinely
wants to get to know
them better, despite
the appearance of a
president bogged
down in dealing with
Ukraine and Russia.
President Obama
was the first fully to
articulate the
“rebalance” strategy,
and the goal of
redeploying US naval
assets and giving
increased attention to
the neglected
governments of
southeast Asia.
Obama duly visited
countries such as
Indonesia, Vietnam
and Myanmar to
assure their people
that there was an
alternative to aligning
with an increasingly
confident and
demanding China.
But the rest of the
world was not going
to be forgotten so
easily. The rise of
Islamic State, the war
in Syria and the
smouldering conflictsin Iraq and
Afghanistan made
their demands. Much
of the administration’s
diplomatic and
political capital went
into the nuclear deal
with Iran.
Under President
Trump, strategic
thinking was replaced
by transactional
diplomacy in which
those leaders who
personally pleased
him won the most
favour. Obama’s most
concrete
achievement, a
comprehensive free
trade agreement
called the Trans-
Pacific Partnership,
intended to unite
Asian countries and
exclude China, was
thrown out by Trump
in his first week in
office.
Biden, Obama’s
vice-president, intent
on picking up where
his former boss left
off, recruited a strong
Asia team, only to
face a crisis greater
than ever: a land war
in Europe with the
potential for
escalation into the
territory of Nato
allies. At this stage the
only thing that would
truly elevate Asia
strategically would be
a comparable crisis: a
Chinese invasion of
Taiwan.