President Biden said in an interview aired Sunday that U.S. forces would defend Taiwan if China were to invade the island.

During an interview broadcast on Sunday, 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley asked Biden what Chinese President Xi should know about his commitment to Taiwan.

“We agree with what we signed onto a long time ago,” Biden replied. “And that there’s one China policy, and Taiwan makes their own judgments about their independence. We are not moving — we’re not encouraging their being independent. We’re not — that — that’s their decision.”

President Biden tells 60 Minutes that U.S. men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. However, after our interview, a White House official told us that U.S. policy on Taiwan has not changed. https://t.co/ANg54LifSH pic.twitter.com/V5qjoqF36T

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) September 19, 2022

“But would U.S. forces defend the island?” Pelley pressed.

Biden responded: “Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack."

“So unlike Ukraine, to be clear, sir,” Pelley said, “U.S. forces, U.S. men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion?”

“Yes,” Biden said.

A White House official later told 60 Minutes that U.S. policy on Taiwan has not changed.

Biden has suggested several times now that the U.S. would defend Taiwan militarily. However, after each statement, the White House has walked back Biden’s claims. The U.S. officially maintains “strategic ambiguity” on whether U.S. forces would defend Taiwan.

Biden’s repeated suggestions that the U.S. would militarily defend Taiwan are a partial departure from the American policy that has been in place since 1979.

“The president has said this before, including in Tokyo earlier this year. He also made clear then that our Taiwan policy hasn't changed. That remains true,” a White House spokesperson told Reuters.

In May, a reporter asked Biden, who was visiting Tokyo at the time, whether the U.S. would involve itself militarily in Taiwan’s defense.

"Yes. That's a commitment we made,” Biden said.

Biden’s latest comments come months after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi angered Chinese authorities and sparked debate over the extent to which the U.S. should intervene to protect Taiwan in the event of a Chinese incursion into its territory.

Pelosi visited Taiwan in July, inflaming tensions with China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory. Her trip made her the highest-ranking American official to visit Taiwan in 25 years.

China views trips by foreign government officials to Taiwan as an acknowledgment of the island's sovereignty and warned that the trip would have an "egregious political impact." It performed live-fire military exercises in the Taiwan Strait after Pelosi's departure.

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