this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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During the Communist revolution the republic government was losing pretty badly and fell back to the very defensible island. They've been there ever since with their official name: the Republic of China. So there's some civil war tension there and a lot of claims of who's the rightful ruler of China.
Please don't skip the critical pieces of information:
The British and USA sent war ships to defend the KMT on Taiwan because they had been trading and negotiating junior status with the KMT and did not want the West to lose access to Chinese markets, labor, and natural resources.
The KMT immediately launched a 40-year terror campaign, called the White Terror, on the island of Taiwan and killed native Islanders as well as Han Chinese who argued that the war should be ended. The European powers funded, traded, and armed this terror.
Taiwan has been part of the nation of China for centuries. It could be argued that the distinct cultural group of native Islanders could get its own autonomous administration region, but the natives don't have much population on the island. The island has been Chinese and is inhabited by Chinese who lost the civil war and tried to secede under the protection of the Europeans, with the Europeans motivated by having a fully dependent neo-colony by prolonging the civil war and supporting the fascist terror.
Since you are talking about historic precedence, what is called "China" today should be called West-Taiwan because the Republic of China aka Taiwan is the original China, preceding the "P"RC.
"West Taiwan" is silly because Tawian is an island. If you want to use the term then in the sense of "Tainan is in West Taiwan" because it is, indeed, on the western coast.
How about "autonomous mainland provinces".
I like your suggestion!
Taiwan's position is no longer that it is the rightful ruler of China. That notion died with Chiang Kai-shek and nobody with a shred of a brain truly believes it.
The PRC won the fight over who "legitimate China" is when the UN gave them the seat for China. Also, one of these is an international superpower and the other is Taiwan.