# The Taiwan blank check

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "The Taiwan blank check," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-taiwan-blank-check/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's reading of the Republican revolt against funding Ukraine: that most of the members refusing to write another blank check for Kyiv wanted to write it for Taipei instead, and would rather have a direct confrontation with China than a decade bogged down in Eastern Europe.*

- **Context:** Republican opposition to Ukraine funding, 2023
- **Kiriakou's claim:** The same members favour confrontation with China
- **Flashpoints named:** South China Sea, Strait of Taiwan
- **Transfers named:** F-35s, guided missile systems

The **Taiwan blank check** is [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)'s account of what lay behind the Republican revolt against Ukraine funding in 2023: not a general aversion to foreign commitments, but a preference for a different one.

## Where the money would go instead

Kiriakou agreed with the framing that the congressional Republicans refusing to write another blank check to Ukraine were largely the members who wanted to write it for Taiwan, and who would rather be in a direct conflict with China than bogged down in Eastern Europe for a decade.[1]

He treated the sentiment as a symptom of a wider media-fed confusion about China. Recalling an elderly family friend during the 2020 election who told him she would not vote for Joe Biden because *"Biden's with China"* and then could not explain what she meant, Kiriakou's reply was that she watched *"way too much Fox News. Way too much. Not wanting to bomb China does not mean you're with China."*[2]

## His own objection to the policy

Having dismissed the partisan framing, Kiriakou registered a substantive worry of his own, and directed it at the administration in office: *"I actually fear the Biden foreign policy on China because I think it's just as provocative as the Trump foreign policy was toward China."*[3]

The specifics he named were the confrontations in the South China Sea and the Strait of Taiwan, and the transfer of F-35s and guided missile systems to Taiwan. His prescription was the opposite of the congressional impulse: *"if anything, we should be at the negotiating table with the Chinese, not poking the hornet's nest. And that's really what we've been doing."*[3]

## See also

- [China as economic threat](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/china-economic-threat)
- [China as mediator](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/china-as-mediator)
- [The Richard Haass back channel](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/richard-haass-track-two)

## Sources

1. False Flags & Real Terrorists w/ John Kiriakou (2023-07-06), at 19:37. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vv7g6&t=1177s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-07-06-am-wakeup-false-flags-real-terrorists-w-john-kiriakou/
2. False Flags & Real Terrorists w/ John Kiriakou (2023-07-06), at 20:08. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vv7g6&t=1208s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-07-06-am-wakeup-false-flags-real-terrorists-w-john-kiriakou/
3. False Flags & Real Terrorists w/ John Kiriakou (2023-07-06), at 20:41. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vv7g6&t=1241s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-07-06-am-wakeup-false-flags-real-terrorists-w-john-kiriakou/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-taiwan-blank-check/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt