The Chinese foreign ministry said on Monday that China has lodged “stern representations” with the United States after U.S. President Joe Biden said U.S. forces would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. China reserves the right to take all necessary measures in response to activities that split the nation apart, said Mao Ning, spokesperson at the foreign ministry, at a regular media briefing.
She also urged the U.S. to handle Taiwan-related issues “carefully and properly”, and not send “wrong signals” to Taiwan independence separatist forces, warning the United States not to seriously damage Sino-U.S. relations and the peace in the Taiwan Strait.
An interesting parallel that is often drawn in this situation is that if the Russia/ Ukraine conflict is on the surface level they appear to be conflicts caused by disagreements over sovereignty. In both cases, the aggressor is the country that believes that the other should still be under its rule.
As for the US involvement, tensions appear to be rising. Due to the lack of action on the US’s part in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the opinion is that a ‘green light’ was shown to the Chinese government to undertake similar action against Taiwan. The worry has been that any intervention in Ukraine would likely cause WWIII due to the tumultuous relationship between Russia and NATO but I fail to see how the situation differs in the case of Taiwan, surely the effects of such an intervention would be similar.
https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/03/china-not-russia-taiwan-not-ukraine
CIMA Law Group Blog 