You are forgetting the Taiwanese. Many businesses have huge investments in China. The Chinese logic is unlike our Western dialectic of "either-or". It's far more "and-and". Harmony, simultaneity, all keeping face. They are more pragmatic than ideologically dogmatic.

So if America forces Taiwan's hand I'm not so sure the Taiwanese are as stupid as the Ukrainians. I doubt they want to be used and discarded as just another page in Rand report. A sacrificable pawn in the game for maintaining US Imperial hegemony. They have worked far too hard building up their country to have it bombed to pieces to serve Washington.

They'll make a win-win deal with Beijing. Something Ukraine should have done instead of letting Boris Johnson and Biden steal their chance of peace. Endebting them for decades and forcing them to sell themselves out to the likes of JP Morgan and BlackRock.