why not maintain that flexibility, as bonnie glaser just said?policy is a clearly conditional commitment, one that's clear that we will protect taiwan if it's attacked by china unprovoked attack. but at the same time, clear to taiwan that we will not come to taiwan's aid if taiwan provokes the attack by declaring independence or moving too close to china's red lines. but i'd like to return to richard's point about that, essentially that if we break the commitment to taiwan, we're giving up in east asia. and i think this greatly exaggerates the risk we can explain to japan and other allies that taiwan is very different than they are from the u.s. perspective. and most importantly, from china's perspective, china does not think japan is part of china. second, we can do many things to make clear that our commitment to japan on the other east asian allies stance, including increasing our defense spending, increasing the tightness of the alliances and so forth. >> schifrin: richard haass, could the u.s. explain the difference between japan and taiwan?

bonnie glaser is the director of the asia program at the german marshall fund.sively about us-china relations. and charles glaser, not related to bonnie glaser is professor of political science and director of the institute for security and conflict at george washington university. welcome to all three of you. thank you very much, richard haass. let me start with you. has u.s. policy of ambiguity about whether it would defend taiwan from chinese invasion run its course? >> well, it has worked well for about four decades. the chinese have not been able to dismiss the possibility that we would come to taiwan's defense. taiwan could not be assured we would, and that's kept everybody essentially on their heels a bit. the problem now is china has built up its military significantly. it's got real capabilities to overwhelm taiwan if left alone. and there's real doubts in china's mind about america's willingness to come to taiwan's aid. they look at what's happened in afghanistan. they look earlier at what we did with the kurds. the red line and syria. how we didn't re