Majorities of the population of both Taiwan and China both see the issue in a more nuanced manner than what you laid out here.

You can go on and deride people who disagree with you as deluded here, but that’s projection on your part.

Of course the situation is nuanced. But we're here to discuss territorial wars of aggression. Not to write a book on ages old cultural interactions. Taiwan and China are both separate sovereign states defacto. They have functioning governments and standing militaries. Any meaningful discussion about the issue has to start from there. Pretending the RoC military doesn't exist just because a bunch of people on the mainland feels like it doesn't actually change reality.

If the PRC wants to change that reality then that means military action at this stage. One China quickly looks like woo woo bullshit when Chengdus start falling out of the sky and Taipei 101 gets hit with a cruise missile.

China and Taiwan are separate states de facto, but at no point in their modern history has either outright rejected the one China policy.

One can’t talk about the main political fault line inside of Taiwan as if it’s a settled matter.

>If they invade it will be seen as an act of aggression and one nation invading another.

Sure but that doesn't mean they are the same. Ukraine is a country that is recognised by both Russia and a UN member state recognised by most of the world. Taiwan is not recognised by China and only 13 UN member states.

It might be bullshit, but it's not the same.

> Nobody except deluded tankies

About a billion of these "deluded tankies" live in China.

> Russia does formally recognize them as a nation

Formal recognitions aside, but if you go anywhere from the Russian extreme left (e.g. Gorbachev) to the Russian extreme right (e.g. Solzhenitsyn), there's one thing they agree upon: they all think Ukraine is historically tied to Russia. Like it or not, there is a wide consensus in Russia with regards to that.

It has served Russian policy since the 90's to have Ukraine and Belarus as independent states, since 3 votes in the UN are better than one.

>About a billion of these "deluded tankies" live in China.

Yup. Although generally I reserve the term for those that come online to spout the propaganda. I suppose most are doing that within the sinosphere part of the internet.

>Formal recognitions aside, but if you go anywhere from the Russian extreme left (e.g. Gorbachev) to the Russian extreme right (e.g. Solzhenitsyn), there's one thing they agree upon: they all think Ukraine is historically tied to Russia. Like it or not, there is a wide consensus in Russia with regards to that.

>It has served Russian policy since the 90's to have Ukraine and Belarus as independent states, since 3 votes in the UN are better than one.

100% agree. I think the real reason Russia is doing this is because they see Ukraine as part of their sphere of influence and Ukrainians taking another path is unacceptable. For Russian leadership, its a case of exerting leverage and control on the states that have been "traditionally" under their thumb, this dates back through the communist era to Imperial Russia and even before in some cases. Its a very old and deep rooted notion.

For the average Russian I wouldn't be surprised if state media have convinced them of the average Ukrainian supporting Russia's invasion, as their outside propaganda claims.

I actually see a lot of parallels between this and how the US has handled stuff in its own backyard. There is a history of the US supporting tin pot dictators simply because the dictator was willing to play ball and the people of the nation overthrowing them. And then there's the banana wars.

I'd like to think we've grown out of that. But that's probably not the case. There is definitely still some intervention in central and south America mostly as part of the war on drugs, but that's not to the same degree as in the past .

In one of his recent speeches, Putin made very clear that he doesn't recognize Ukraine as a nation.