20 NEWS Talking points
THE WEEK 28 May 2022Is President Biden confused, or
is he ditching decades of US
foreign policy? That’s what
everybody is asking in the
wake of his latest remarks
about Taiwan, said Stephen
Collinson on CNN. In Tokyo
this week, during his first
presidential tour of East Asia,
Biden told a reporter that the
US would intervene militarily
if China attacked Taiwan.
“That’s the commitment we
made,” he said. The US has
actually made no such
commitment. For 43 years, it
has maintained a policy of
“strategic ambiguity”. This has
involved both acknowledging
(but not endorsing) Beijing’s position that
Taiwan is part of China, and pledging to help
the island defend itself with US-made weapons,
while remaining deliberately vague about
whether American/US forces would be deployed.
Biden is “a master of the verbal muddle”, said
The Wall Street Journal, and White House aides
hastily “walked back” his comments. But this
was the third time in a year that Biden had
indicated that the US would come to Taiwan’s
aid. Perhaps he meant it.Biden should be commended for his “plain
speaking”, said The Times. China has been
stepping up its incursions into Taiwan’s airspace
and relentlessly targeting the island with
cyberattacks. Now is the time for the US todrop the “subtle signalling”
in favour of a more muscular
line. Biden didn’t so much “end
strategic ambiguity as modify
it”, said The Washington Post.
He has given Beijing “new
reasons to think long and hard
before sending its armed forces
across the Taiwan Strait”.Biden is playing with fire, said
David Smith in The Guardian.
America’s delicate balancing
act on Taiwan has been
designed not just to deter
China from invading, but also
to deter Taiwan from declaring
full independence. “Either
scenario would trigger a major
geopolitical crisis.” Alas, some US strategists
seem to have drawn “the wrong lessons” from
the Russian invasion of Ukraine, said Lyle
Goldstein on UnHerd. They think it underlines
the need for a tougher stance on Taiwan, but the
reality is that the US is in no position to threaten
Beijing over the island. “A series of war games
has demonstrated that the US would likely lose
a conflict with China over Taiwan”, owing to
basic geography and the fact that Beijing would
be far more committed to the fight. America
would be well-advised to stick with its
ambiguous approach on Taiwan, and try to help
Taipei find a “creative diplomatic compromise”
with the mainland. Raising unrealistic
expectations of a US military intervention only
risks poisoning US-China relations.Pick of the week’s
Gossip
Biden: a tougher stance on Taiwan
Windfall taxes always sound easy and harmless,
said the Daily Mail. “Very few people feel tender
emotions towards huge corporations”, such as
the oil and gas companies that are currently
raking in record profits. And at a time when
millions are struggling because of tax hikes,
and runaway inflation, “the idea of creaming
off large sums of money from energy giants
and using it to ease the pain of ordinary people
is almost impossible to resist”. Labour first
proposed a one-off tax on North Sea oil and gas
producers in January, which it says could raise
£2bn to set against energy bills. Initially, the
Government rejected the idea out of hand. But
now the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is seriously
considering a windfall tax, said Tim Shipman
in The Sunday Times. Boris Johnson’s chief
advisers, including his powerful new deputy
chief of staff David Canzini, are said to be
deeply opposed, on the grounds that such taxes
are “ideologically unconservative”. But the PM
himself seems to be coming round to the idea.A number of cabinet members have quite rightly
spoken out against this “asinine idea”, said
The Daily Telegraph. “Windfall levies are
retrospective, changing the rules on a whim by
hiking taxes when people happen to have made
more money.” This is unfair to the businesses
affected, and it also “injects uncertainty andinstability into the tax system”. It would reduce
investment at the very time when we need more
financing for the UK’s oil and gas fields. Actually,
there is “a respectable free-market argument”
for windfall taxes, said John Rentoul on The
Independent. The energy companies’ recent
profits are the product of luck, “not hard
work or innovation” – the price of oil has risen
70% in the past year, owing largely to Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine. There is also a good
one-nation Tory argument for spending the
proceeds on the mitigation of poverty, at a time
of exceptional hardship – even if it wouldn’t
raise a vast amount (perhaps equivalent to £
per household). Besides, such a tax would be
extremely popular, particularly among voters
in the “red wall” seats the Tories won in 2019.In the circumstances, it makes sense that Sunak
is considering a special form of windfall tax,
said the Daily Mail – one that would offer
energy firms different rates of tax based on what
they are prepared to invest in UK infrastructure.
That would allow the Government to raise some
money “while also encouraging good business
practice”. Treasury officials are still working
on their plans, said the FT. In the meantime, the
Chancellor has told energy producers that if
they do not quickly increase their investment
commitments, then “no option is off the table”.A windfall tax: popular but misguided?
Taiwan: can it expect backup?The actor and writer
Stephen Fry got more than
he bargained for when he
met Princess Margaret at a
party, and told her that he
was related to John Fry, a
parliamentarian who had
signed Charles I’s death
warrant in 1649. Margaret’s
response, Fry told the Radio
Times Television Festival
last week, was to pick up a
fork and stab him in the leg
with it. “There,” she said as
he yelped in pain. “We’ve
got some of our own back.”As president, George W.
Bush was well known for
his verbal gaffes. “Rarely
is the question asked: is
our children learning?”
he famously declared in- Last week, he raised
eyebrows again when,
during a speech in Dallas,
he railed against “the
decision of one man to
launch a wholly unjustified
and brutal invasion of Iraq”.
Bush, now 75, paused, then
corrected himself. “I mean,
of Ukraine.”
Gavin Williamson was not
universally popular by
the time he was fired as
education secretary, says
The Sunday Times; but it
turns out that the MP has
no shortage of admirers in
the breakaway east African
republic of Somaliland. Back
in January, he championed
its campaign for recognition
in a parliamentary debate.
This didn’t make front-page
news here, but it did in
Somaliland. Soon after, the
republic held a national
day of appreciation in his
honour, attended by
thousands. And since then,
it has awarded him full
citizenship. “I was just
completely overwhelmed,”
he said. “It’s perhaps not
really what I’m used to.”