In September of 2022, for the fourth time in little over a year, U.S. President Biden said that Americans would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion only to be followed by White House aides walking back his statement, because it contradicted an American strategy developed in the late 1970s of deliberate ambiguity about whether or not it would come to Taiwan’s aid if it were attacked. The most recent occasion prompted yet another round of questions about whether strategic ambiguity is dead and warnings that abandoning strategic ambiguity is unwise.
