Re: I blame Nixon.
It would have been impossible to ignore forever the fact that the CCP had won the civil war, and controlled the entire country, except a small island off the south coast. You can accept them as a the legitimate government for a few years after the exile perhaps, but by the 70s it was clear that the nationalists were never going to be able to take back the mainland.
The mistake was in accepting the "one china" principle. It was never really part of the debate, because both the CCP and the KMT in Taiwan both laid claim to the whole of China. So there was nobody at the time to push the case that Taiwan was independent and should have a right to self-determination. Can't even blame Nixon for that really.
Now things are very different. I spent couple of years living in Taiwan in the 90s, it held its first direct presidential elections. It has become a vibrant democracy, and a leading progressive country in the region. Meanwhile, the population increasingly see themselves as Taiwanese rather than Chinese. Something like 90% now.
So in the same way Nixon in the 70s recognized the reality at the time, the west now needs to accept the reality in Taiwan of the 2020s, which is that the people there no longer regard themselves as Chinese, they no longer want to rule the whole of China, they just want to be able to run their own country along democratic principles, play their role in the world, have their athletes compete under their own flag and not have the constant threat of China blocking them and putting pressure on western countries to choose a side because of economic reasons. China is powerful economically, but at the same time, if the western nations all simultaneously agreed to diplomatically recognize Taiwan, China would bankrupt itself pretty quickly and then face an internal uprising if it decided to cut all ties and trade with the west.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
