As one war rages in Europe, ravaging one country while sending economic shockwaves across the globe, the conditions for another war, with equally disastrous potential, might be brewing a continent away. And if it does break out, we will one day be able to look back and say it probably wouldn’t have happened without a series of pointless provocations from leaders in Washington.

Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by a seventeen-five vote the Taiwan Policy Act, called by its authors “the most comprehensive restructuring of U.S. policy towards Taiwan since the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979,” which was to set the ground rules for US relations with Taiwan after Washington reestablished diplomatic ties with the mainland. The new bill’s headline provisions entail a change in US policy to treat Taiwan as a “major non-NATO ally” and to that end authorize $6.5 billion worth of military aid for training, equipment, and weapons, as well as prepare a suite of sanctions should a Chinese attack on the country materialize.

The text of the bill was reportedly changed after Joe Biden’s administration expressed concerns that its original language would shred the “One China” policy that’s underlain stable and peaceful relations between Beijing and Washington for decades. Rather than being “designated” a major non-NATO ally, as the bill’s text first put it, Taiwan will now “be treated as though it were designated” the label, and there’s no longer a “direction” to change the name of what is effectively Taiwan’s US embassy but rather a “recommendation.” At the same time, lawmakers have added $2 billion more of military aid to the original sum of $4.5 billion.