This is a repeat of the same misleading narrative that Putin is trying to push. Ukraine is not "NATO vs Russia", it's "The Ukranians vs Putin". Similarly, the

This is a repeat of the same misleading narrative that Putin is trying to push. Ukraine is not "NATO vs Russia", it's "The Ukranians vs Putin". Similarly, the Taiwan conflict is not "US vs China". It's "the people of Taiwan vs the CCP" (possibly "vs the people of China" though it's hard to say in a country without democracy). There's no question about how the Taiwanese feel; they vote on it every few years in free elections. Americans are mere supporting cast. We have our opinions, but if the Taiwanese all voted to embrace Xi, we'd shake our heads and walk away. The status quo favors Taiwan. Xi knows this, but without actually going through the process of building a huge navy and launching a military invasion, the de-facto result is that Taiwan continues to be an independent nation. Another couple generations and even China will forget about the big island across the sea. I'm fine with that.