Commentary In a recent interview, President Joe Biden raised a storm of commentary by telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper that the United States would defend Taiwan if it were attacked by China. In fact, he emphasized that America had made a commitment to provide such defense. The reason for the storm of commentary is that official U.S. policy regarding the defense of Taiwan has long been one of ambiguity. In other words, Washington has not officially said that it would or would not defend Taiwan. The reason for this deliberate policy of ambiguity is rooted in the agreements reached between the United States and China in 1972 when President Richard Nixon visited Beijing, and in 1979 when the U.S. Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act. Nixon agreed to recognize Beijing and its Communist Party as the sovereign power in China in place of the Nationalist government in Taipei, Taiwan, which the …