Admire your certitude. An orange man in the White House could break NATO and say its an internal affair between China and Taiwan in no time...

"China warns on Taiwan, South China Sea at Shangri-La forum" - https://www.voanews.com/a/china-warns-on-taiwan-south-china-...

"Former U.S. President Trump Hints He Wouldn't Defend Taiwan From China" - https://youtu.be/5KEgY8FR51o

Donald Trump says a lot of stuff that is intended to prey on the minds of the public. His words (let alone his signature on a treaty) mean nothing and can be revoked at any time. Until he actually does something, the singular value of statements like these is to make headlines. If everything Donald Trump said was written into policy, he'd have contradicted himself into anarchy.

The parent's line of logic is sound; the United States has fundamental interests in securing Taiwan's independence. They are one of the very few countries that would receive Israel-levels of international intervention if their sovereignty was threatened, and China knows that. A ground invasion under current conditions would be political and materiel suicide; you have to imagine apocalypse-level global malcontent before NATO would roll over and go ahead with China's reunification strategy.

Well the Pentagon seems to think they will.

"The Pentagon Is Freaking Out About a Potential War With China" - https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/09/america-we...

"...But a swift response may not be possible, in large part because of how shrunken the U.S. manufacturing base has become since the Cold War. All of a sudden, Washington is reckoning with the fact that so many parts and pieces of munitions, planes, and ships it needs are being manufactured overseas, including in China. Among the deficiencies: components of solid rocket motors, shell casings, machine tools, fuses and precursor elements to propellants and explosives, many of which are made in China and India..."

"Chinese President Xi Jinping has instructed the Chinese military to be prepared to invade Taiwan by 2027, Adm. John Aquilino, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said." - https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15243813

Because the United States has a strategy that relies on deterrence. That's what's stopping them today, and maintaining that advantage is a critical component of scaring China away from arbitrary harassment campaigns like they engage with in the Philippines.

You need to stop reading into sensationalist headlines and actually understand the strategies at-play here. This is about creating sufficient conditions for China to not invade Taiwan, not blowing each other up in a second floating Ukraine. China doesn't want that, Taiwan doesn't want that, and the United States doesn't want that either. The critical difference between posturing and realpolitik is actually doing something; China will refuse to commit to a violent invasion unless globalism fails them (hint: globalism never fails China).

I am thoroughly enjoying wasting my time off dealing with your assertions. Like pigs, I enjoy being muddy. The man in the white house doesn't matter a flying flip with regards to treaty enforcement, and there's sufficient rule of law left in this country to correctly handle any Chinese aggression. Oh and the real reason China won't attack Taiwan is because the chip factories are rigged to explode and without that there's no reason to invade. But you already knew that, or should, with your illusion of expertise in this matter.

You speak like these people :-) https://youtu.be/P04pHRBmaaQ

Let me try: From the resplendent shores of freedom, the invincible alliance of the United States and Taiwan stands unbreakable! As waves crash upon the might of our union, China's endeavors will dissolve into the sands of futility....Together, fortified by the treaties of solidarity, we will witness the dawn of triumph over China ambitions over Taiwan. Long live the US Taiwan treaty!

> The US has a treaty to defend Taiwan against foreign aggression.

The US does not have any such treaty. First off, the US doesn't have any treaties with Taiwan, because the US does not recognize Taiwan as a country. What the US has is its own national law, the Taiwan Relations Act, which is deliberately ambiguous as to whether the US would actually intervene to defend Taiwan.