Indeed. Always reminds me of Chomsky's description of how the west characterizes terms like 'terrorism'. It's the "heads I win, tails you lose," version of foreign policy.

What the Chinese military has been doing in the straights of Taiwan has been a major escalation of over 50 years of peace. Taiwan has done nothing to threaten the position with China, this is 100% politically motivated by the CCP.

Just because the US does some pretty distasteful things with their military doesn't give others carte blanche.

The FT report of US stance is most likely correct, though point is that US forces are travelling thousands of miles to do shows of force near China and then accuse China of being aggressive.