Cotton: China Setting the Stage to Invade Taiwan, We Need to Be Clear We’ll Defend Taiwan

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said that China is “trying to set the stage one day for a potential invasion and annexation of Taiwan, which would be a catastrophe for American interests.” And the U.S. “should be perfectly clear to the Chinese Communists, we will defend Taiwan if China tries to invade and forcibly annex it.”

Cotton stated, “Joe Biden is showing weakness around the globe and our adversaries are probing and pressing. I mean, China is the biggest threat we face in the world right now, Bret, it’s not just a security threat, but an economic threat as well. What they’ve done in terms of kind of probing Taiwan’s airspace is, in my opinion, trying to set the stage one day for a potential invasion and annexation of Taiwan, which would be a catastrophe for American interests.”

He added, “Bret, we should end the ambiguity. We should be perfectly clear to the Chinese Communists, we will defend Taiwan if China tries to invade and forcibly annex it. It’s true that, for many decades, we’ve had a policy of what’s known as strategic ambiguity, not showing our hand either to Beijing or to Taiwan’s leaders. But things have changed, the People’s Liberation Army is now capable of executing an invasion of Taiwan. So, the only thing really restraining Xi Jinping, China’s leader, is what the United States will do. Likewise, Taiwan has completed the transition from military government to being a vibrant democracy. We should stand by the only democracy on Chinese soil and we should make it clear that we will come to Taiwan’s aid. That’s not going to provoke a conflict, Bret, that is specifically designed to deter a conflict.”

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