The history of the region is far more complicated of course, you’re neglecting that Macau wasn’t lost in a war. It was leased as a trading post. There’s no reason to believe that the contiguous border China would like to espouse is either historically fair or reasonable today. Macau is more like St Pierre and Miquelon or Point Roberts. It’s governed under the same terms as HK.

It’s also unclear why Taiwan should be “recovered” at all, they were two factions of the cultural revolution sure, but that doesn’t mean they should be unified now any more than the UK should “recover” America.

of their quarrels with the rest of the world. to the chinese. i think taiwan is the least negotiable. they're not done yet, their revolutionary war.

we can of course disagree with china. but ignoring what they want is...i don't know...naive?