Originally Posted by
Skroe
I
The practical reality is, Taiwan is a self governing country and the People's Republic of China does not exercise its authority there.
The political reality is that any kind of acceptance of this fact would undermine the Chinese Communist Party's claim to single party rule in China in a very fundamental way. It would be an existential threat to the regime for them to normalize and accept that Taiwan is independent. The foundation of their claim on power is that after centuries of being carved up by foreign powers, the Chinese Communist Party unified ALL of historic China, and restored China's traditional standing in the world. Were a Western Power be allowed to carve off a slice of it still, it would destroy that foundation. This is why, in Russia threads, we remind the Russians here that Chinese claims on parts of the Russian Far East, taken as one of their "Unequal Treaties" are still outstanding, and one day, they will want them back.