Joe Biden Backs Down on Taiwan After Xi Jinping Warns of ‘Playing with Fire’

President Joe Biden walked back a comment apparently describing Taiwan as “independent” on Tuesday after dictator Xi Jinping threatened Biden in a virtual meeting that those supporting the island nation would get “burned.”

After an event on infrastructure in New Hampshire, Biden told reporters he made it very clear to Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping during their video conference that the United States supported the 1979 Taiwan Act.

“We have made very clear we support the Taiwan Act, and that’s it,” Biden said to reporters. “It’s independent. It makes its own decisions.”

The Taiwan Act does not recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty. The United States does not acknowledge that Taiwan – run under a democratic system independent from Beijing for its entire existence – is a sovereign state as doing so would automatically trigger the end of diplomatic ties with communist China. The Taiwan Act does allow Washington to establish “relations” with Taipei separately from Beijing and allows the United States “to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character,” effectively lending support against a Chinese invasion.