>There is no such a thing called gradual independence.

The statement was "gradual changes towards independence". Are you saying it is not possible for a territory to take any steps that might lead towards independence or make it more likely?

Blatantly taking statements out of context and intentionally misrepresenting them is not appreciated.

Please look at the Irish, or Canadian, or Montenegrin, or Philippines examples. There are all kinds of intermediate arrangements between independence and annexation, and places can slide fairly smoothly between them.

For all purposes that matter, Taiwan is already independent.

They don't have to declare it. They just are independent already.

They control their own borders. They tax their own people. They have their own military. That makes them independent in my book, regardless of whether or not they announce it to the world or not.

The "announcement" part of it just doesn't matter that much.

Of course Taiwan is in a independent country, it's called Republic of China, which also includes islands outside Taiwan.

You can go to a no-man island and declare your own independence and nobody will care about it.

However, a country that interact with other countries, their independence is recognized by both parties.

Further, as Taiwan is so close to mainland, whether geo-politically, or economically, made it detaching links to China infeasible.

> However, a country that interact with other countries, their independence is recognized by both parties.

Taiwan's independence is de facto recognized by the US and many (most?) other major powers, it's just not recognized de jure because of the PRC's diplomatic policy. For instance, the US basically has an embassy in Taiwan (they just don't call it one), which is staffed by State Department diplomats (who take a leave of absence to work there so they're not technically diplomats when there). It walks like a duck, it talks like a duck, but many have agreed to pretend it's not a duck for reasons.

This stuff isn't as black and white as you seem to think it is.

This is actually a better argument for independent status than de jure in my mind, because countries essentially "opt-in" and go out of their way to make special rules for dealing with Taiwan. There's no default recognition by virtue of UN admission and having diplomatic relations or some other standard international measure.

I'd say that puts it above many countries that might have wide de jure recognition, but limited, ineffective, or largely chilled diplomatic relations, like North Korea.

> You can go to a no-man island and declare

Declaring isn't the thing that is important.

As I said before, the important part is controlling your own borders, taxing your own people, and having your own military.

That is what makes a country a country. Not things like "declaring" or "recognition".