No American administration ever thought "let's placate Beijing because we are too scared of them getting angry". Every time the decision to compromise with Beij

No American administration ever thought "let's placate Beijing because we are too scared of them getting angry". Every time the decision to compromise with Beijing was made based on a certain trade-off. This is no different today. The US military and civilian experts believe that if Taiwan declares independence, Beijing will use its military to take control of Taiwan, regardless of the US involvement. US presidents do not want several million people to die for the cause of Taiwan independence. Of course, most presidents do not care much about Chinese or Taiwanese deaths, but they do care that this will hurt the US economy and business interests; and depending on how things play out, thousands of Americans may also die, which is bad for reelection. In other words, the US administrations do not want Taiwan to declare independence. They do, however, like to use Taiwan as a pawn in their games with China, just like they would use an aircraft carrier near the Chinese coast. They also like to use Taiwan as a pawn in the internal US political wars, for example by creating difficulties for the opposite party before that party takes over the White House.