Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders said if he was elected president he would ‘absolutely’ use the military if China attacked Taiwan.
The presidential 2020 hopeful said if he were in the White House he would authorize military force if warranted, both to protect US interests and to support its allies.
He also denied being a pacifist, declared his support for NATO and added he would be willing to meet with the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, as President Donald Trump has done on three occasions.
Sanders has emerged with an early lead in the Democratic nominating process, and as a self-declared democratic socialist his foreign and security policies are starting to draw closer scrutiny. But he has denied being a pacifist.
In the interview that aired on Sunday on CBS’s ’60 Minutes’, the Vermont senator was asked in what circumstances he, as commander-in-chief, would deploy US military forces.
Senator Bernie Sanders told Anderson Cooper in an interview that aired on Sunday on CBS’s ’60 Minutes’, he would use military force if elected president
Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders speaking during a campaign rally in Santa Ana, California, on Friday
He listed these criteria: ‘Threats against the American people, to be sure. Threats against our allies. I believe in NATO.
‘I believe that the United States, everything being equal, should be working with other countries in alliance, not doing it alone.’
When interviewer, Anderson Cooper, asked whether he would order military action if Taiwan came under attack from China, Sanders replied: ‘Yeah. I mean, I think we have got to make it clear to countries around the world that we will not sit by and allow invasions to take place, absolutely.’
The senator, who scored a resounding victory Saturday in the Nevada presidential caucuses, was asked if he would follow Trump’s example and meet with the North Korean leader.
‘Yeah, I mean I’ve criticized Trump for everything…’ he said. ‘But meeting with people who are antagonistic is, to me, not a bad thing.’
Sanders added that he believed Trump was ‘unprepared’ when he met with Kim – their meeting last year in Hanoi collapsed in disagreement.
‘But I do not have a problem with sitting down with adversaries all over the world.’
Bernie Sanders said he would use military force if warranted, both to protect US interests and to support its allies
Anderson Cooper asked Sanders, if the Vermont senator were elected president, whether he would use military force in the event China attacked Taiwan
Sanders also declared ‘we have the best military in the world’, as Cooper began his line of questioning.
During the same interview, Sanders also defended his previous praise of Fidel Castro’s rule of Cuba.
He told Cooper the communist dictator’s regime was ‘not all bad’ and praised his ‘massive literacy program’ and health care system during the 1980s.
In a recent New York Times survey of the Democratic candidates, Sanders and fellow Senator Elizabeth Warren said they would continue Trump’s personal diplomacy with Kim, but former vice president Joe Biden, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and Senator Amy Klobuchar said they would not.
Sanders, along with Biden and Bloomberg, also said he would consider using force to pre-empt an Iranian or North Korean nuclear or missile test.
Sanders is known best for his positions on economic justice – particularly the yawning gap in the US between the wealthiest Americans and those much less well-to-do.
Bernie Sanders greeting supporters as he arrived at a campaign rally in Santa Ana ahead of Super Tuesday and the California Democratic primary
Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a meeting with Tedros Adhanom, Director General of the World Health Organization last month. Sanders was asked whether he would order military action if Taiwan came under attack from China
But as his chances of winning the Democratic nomination rise, scrutiny is bound to intensify on other issues.
As a student at the University of Chicago during the turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s, Sanders belonged to several leftist and anti-war groups, including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
In 2015, when a Politico interviewer questioned him about his decision to register as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, he replied: ‘I am not a pacifist.’
‘I supported the war in Afghanistan,’ in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, he noted.
In 1991, however, he had opposed the first Gulf War.
Sanders told Politico that he had backed the Clinton administration’s military actions in Kosovo and President Barack Obama’s air strikes in Syria.
But he then added, ‘I happen to believe from the bottom of my heart that war should be the last resort’.