@BakerBagel “American aligned entities” seek alliances because of China’s aggression, and they do so by collaborating not just with America but also with each other, e.g., Japan, the Philipines, Australia, and others. These countries collaborates voluntarily with each other because of China’s imperialistic behaviour in the region, not because China is “boxed in” by any Western “entity”.
Beijing has been disputing a lot of its neighbours’ sovereignty on land and at sea, including India’s and Russia’s, and neither India nor Russia are exactly what I would call “American aligned entities”. As <a href="" rel="nofollow">@Buffalox</a> already said, even the single-party communist country Vietnam with a similar authoritarian system seeks stronger ties with the USA rather China.
Taiwan is of massive strategic value because it would allow Chinese vessels to access the Pacific Ocean unimpeded.
China has been accessing the Pacific Ocean unimpeded for decades now, no one questions that. The reasons why China wants control over Taiwan are manifold, one being Taiwan’s prominent role in the global supply chain, another is that it would give China better access to the South China Sea and its estimated reserves of 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 11 billion barrels of oil.