> Taiwan is under the administration of the government which ruled China

Both consider themselves the temporarily embarrassed rightful heir to the centuries old concept of China.

The distinction between take/retake in this scenario is a shallow attempt to peacock your political opinion for everyone to see.

> Both consider themselves the temporarily embarrassed rightful heir to the centuries old concept of China.

This is an outdated take that does not reflect the contemporary feelings of the Taiwanese people and at best only describes a facet of KMT party policy. Bear in mind the KMT does not hold a majority in the legislature - they had to form a coalition with a third party to do so - and the president is from the DPP, which explicitly considers Taiwan a sovereign nation and does not buy into the notion that Taiwan is secretly the real China.

So is the insistence on “retake”.

With the exception that “take” is technically correct, as the area in question is a remnant of the already existing government which has maintained independence in a cease fire. Both claim the other, but facts still matter. You don’t “retake” an area that was never under your control.

The RoC lost mainland China to the CCP, but the CCP was never the owner of Taiwan.

>but the CCP was never the owner of Taiwan.

I think his perspective is: "If the Qing were the Chinese Goverment and they had Taiwan, and the CCP is the Chinese Government does not have Taiwan, so they will be retaking the island".

His conviction speaks to the strength of the CCP narrative that they ARE China though.

"China" can "retake" an area previously under "China" control. The original post mentioned only "China", not the CCP, and that sentence was correct. What makes this scenario difficult to the Taiwanese people, is that the CCP is expected to absolutely refuse to step down or share power in exchange for "China" taking back control of Taiwan. It wants to be the unchallenged authoritarian ruler of China + Taiwan

CCP/PRC =! "China". It's a dynasty of China, one of many. Americans aren't generally familiar with the concept of dynasties, but the Europeans would be. When I was in France some years ago, I was told that France went through 2 kingdom phases and 5 republics in it's history, with the current iteration being the 5th Republic of France. The 5th Republic never owned a colony in what's now the US, but some previous iteration of "France" did, until they sold it to the US in the famous "Louisiana purchase". Thus, it is correct to say that "France" used to owned parts of what's now the US. Likewise, it is correct to say that "China" used to own Taiwan", even though the PRC/CCP never did.

Most MSM stories on Taiwan take pains to point out the PRC/CCP have never controlled Taiwan. That is technically correct but intentionally misleading, counting on the (mostly American) readers to not understand the difference between a government/dynasty/regime of a country and the country itself, which has histories extending back beyond the founding of its current regime.

The current demand of China to Taiwan, is that Taiwan must continue to claim itself as a rival regime to the PRC vying to control, and represent, all of China. What will trigger war is formal Taiwan "independence", defined as Taiwan rescinding claims on PRC territories and declaring itself a sovereign country independent from not just the PRC, but the ROC (Republic of China) or any other concept of "China" altogether