Taiwan might be beholden to the US in some sense - but essentially the bargain is for Taiwan not to seek independence and disrupt the “status quo” and in exchange the US will be “strategically ambiguous” about whether it will defend Taiwan against PRC aggression or not.

That’s hardly enough to call Taiwan a “protectorate”

And the only reason Taiwan even needs the US is PRC’s belligerence.

I still maintain that the current Taiwanese government represents the will of Taiwanese people - and would even argue that more so than the American government represents the will of American people for example.

Taiwanese people have been fighting for independence throughout all its history, only to be swept up in larger geopolitical turmoil and ambitions of empires.

Population of Taiwan resisted European colonization, Qing colonization, Japanese colonization… and when it looked like they might finally get a chance at self-determination after WWII, as many other countries have, they got occupied by the ROC military and suffered another wave of colonization from the mainland (with tacit US support), and decades of brutal dictatorship and martial law. Of course each of these colonial periods contributed to shaping the unique Taiwanese identity and culture of present day.

Taiwanese people managed to survive the Chiang dictatorship and reform their government in 1990 to become a vibrant and free democracy, and became one of the most successful countries in the world. Unfortunately they have inherited the complicated geopolitical situation forged during the cold war period and delicate balance of world powers at the time, combined with gross diplomatic malpractice by Chiang Kai-shek, who then, like Xi now, was too focused on Chinese nationalism and trying to reconstruct the Qing empire, and cared little for the actual population of Taiwan.