Taiwan has been part of China far longer than US has even existed. During the civil war after the communists won the nationalists fled to Taiwan and set up a fascist dictatorship and said they represent all of China. Up until the Shanghai Communique in the 1970s this fascist dictatorship was the sole legal representation of China, but one of the terms to China’s opening up was the US recognizes mainland China (PRC) as the sole legal representative and they agreed at least legally that Taiwan is a part of the PRC. Since then Taiwan has liberalized politically and economically but are now more than ever a total US puppet. The US has done basically everything short of legally recognizing Taiwan, sending massive amounts of weapons, having US troops training Taiwan troops, despite being a very different overall context in the US eyes Taiwan is like China’s Ukraine. They don’t give a fuck about the people there and will fight China to the last Taiwanese just like they’re willingly letting thousands die in Ukraine. Taiwan is also very important economically, with control over the taiwan strait probably being more important than Taiwan itself.