This is the main point... --- ... at least in my opinion. One could argue about whether or not the root cause of the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban was domestic US politics (as Merkel implied), the failed Afghan government, or something else entirely. However, I would go one step further and argue that the Taliban is, in some sense, an internal force. In this sense, the takeover can be seen as a (non-democratic) change in the leadership of the country but definitely not an invasion. It is this characterisation that sets it apart from a possible Chinese takeover of Taiwan. One complication, of course, is that China does not accept Taiwan as a separate entity so it is conceivable that they'd argue that Biden should similarly stay out of any change in Taiwanese leadership, whether voluntary from the point of view of the Taiwanese or not.

Source author: André Xuereb andre.xuereb@um.edu.mt