I don't think I understand everything regarding strageic ambiguity but I am going to try to formalize this question.
Strategic ambiguity is a foreign policy strategy that involves deliberately keeping one's intentions and capabilities vague or unclear in order to gain a strategic advantage. In other words, it is a deliberate decision to maintain ambiguity or uncertainty about a country's goals or intentions in order to create an advantage in negotiations, deter potential adversaries, or avoid unwanted escalations of conflict.
The US has maintained a policy of strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan, neither fully recognizing it as an independent state nor acknowledging China's claims of sovereignty over it. This ambiguity allows the US to maintain its defense relationship with Taiwan without directly provoking China. It also serves to deter China from taking any aggressive actions against Taiwan, as China cannot be sure how the US would respond.
Determining whether the US has abandoned its strategic ambiguity policy towards Taiwan would likely require analyzing a variety of factors, such as official statements, policy actions, and diplomatic engagements.
This question will resolve YES if, by 2028, the US has done any of the following:
Official Statement: The US government has made an official statement regarding Taiwan's independence/sovereignty.
Policy Actions: The US has made a policy action demonstrating a change in stance regarding Taiwan's sovereignty. For example, if the US increases military support to Taiwan, such as by providing more advanced weaponry, or begins engaging in joint military exercises with Taiwan, this could suggest a shift away from strategic ambiguity.
Diplomatic Engagements: If the US government engages in more high-level and publicized meetings with Taiwanese officials, or if US officials start to refer to Taiwan as a separate and independent country rather than simply a part of China.
@MatthewBarnett has a great post on the EA forum regarding China/Taiwan which I think makes for good reading which motivated this question.
I don't think I really understand everything with respect to strategic ambiguity, but I think this is a very important question to answer. I won't bet on this market.
1,000
1.00@basket random Only linking the code that needs to be modified for anyone who is interested in implementing it.
There is some confusion here about what Strategic Ambiguity is. SA (from here on) in reference to Taiwan is the US's policy of not saying whether it would intervene on Taiwan's behalf if China invaded. This was historically because the US did not want to give Taipei a guarantee that it might use as an umbrella to declare formal independence under (something that Tsai now claims happened anyway). The ambiguity is over the US's use of force, not who it recognises.
The US's ambiguity over the sovereignty of Taiwan is contained within its One China Policy, consisting of the Three Joint Communiqués and the Taiwan Relations Act, which basically summarises to: the US does not recognise Taiwan as a state, does recognise the PRC as a state, and acknowledges that both the PRC and ROC and their citizens believe there is only one China (something no longer true).
It may be true that the One China policy is an example of strategic ambiguity (Wikipedia thinks so). However, in discussions about US-Taiwan relations, what I have written above holds and I think the question(s) as formulated not the best written versions of themselves, since people with knowledge of the field will misunderstand the questions before reading the descriptions.
Apologies if this post comes across as lecturing 🤣
@JoshuaWilkes it comes across as lecturing and I appreciate it.
I would love for help in crafting a better question than this (and the other related markets)
@MarcusAbramovitch Yeah, I believe the way Strategic Ambiguity is described in this market is inaccurate. The term as I understand it is generally used this way:
Strategic ambiguity typically is understood as deliberately creating uncertainty in Beijing and Taipei about whether the United States would intervene in a war.
Source: https://www.rand.org/blog/2023/01/strategic-ambiguity-may-have-us-and-taiwan-trapped.html
It is not about whether Taiwan is recognized as an independent state, which is a separate but related issue. The US maintains a defense relationship with Taiwan even though it recognizes Beijing, not Taipei.
So, to be clear, strategic ambiguity is specifically about the US defense relationship with Taiwan and whether the US would defend Taiwan in a war against China. The description in your question focuses more on the US stance on China/Taiwan sovereignty - that is related to the US defense posture, but it's not directly what strategic ambiguity is about.
The way I would interpret the title question is: will the US shift to a clear policy stance on whether the US would defend Taiwan in a war against China (stating a clear policy that they either would or wouldn't, rather than leaving it somewhat ambiguous).