Based on what? In what way, other than recognition, is Taiwan not a country? One of the basic premises (or lies, if you prefer) of the UN is the right of self determination. Is it your contention, that free from threat of force, the people of Taiwan would not elect to be an independent country?
In what way, other than the threat of force, is Texas not a country? It is a group of people, many of whom would like to be independent of the US, and many who don't for a variety of reasons.
Is this intended as a serious response? Honestly, Texans have a streak of independence but Texas doesn't act like a country in any meaningful sense.
If you're going to beat that drum, then Tibet is a much better example of an embarrassment for the global community. So is Palestine. I'm sure I could find other examples.
Agree on Tibet, much tougher to help a landlocked oppressed country that is surrounded on 3 borders by the country that conquered it, than it is for the world's most dominant naval power of all time to help an island country. However, if that's where you want to spend your energy I won't disagree.
Palestine on the other hand doesn't fit this narrative, and has less sympathy from me. Specifically whether you recognize them as a country or not, their continued hostility and attacks on another country entitle that country to respond militarily.
Of course your argument seems less about self-determination than "China. So bad."
If you say. Of course, I've made the same arguments in the Middle East, Africa and South America, but it must just be China that I'm worried about.
Nixon and other presidents understood that we could help ourselves and the Chinese people better without putting up our dukes and isolating those damn communists. As a result, China has a growing middle class more likely to hold their government accountable. Meanwhile, nations we've given the "build a wall" treatment to like North Korea and Cuba remain horrible actors stagnant. (ed.)
Nice strawman, show me anywhere I said we should isolate China. We should support Taiwan's independence, if that's what they really want.
It's easy to point the finger at a rising nation and demanding that they respect the environment when your developed country has already finished their big dams, flooded valleys, and dredged your coasts.
It's easy to claim to support the environment and then make excuses for third world countries poisoning it faster than others can fix it. Even if what you say is true, there's no excuse for subsidizing that destruction by deliberately encouraging companies to expand in those jurisdictions because of the costs they can save (some of which are human, but many of which are environmental).
China has a horrid environmental record, and they haven't even committed to slowing the rate of increase in the damage they are causing for more than a decade. Think about that, they are deliberately increasing their rate of damage currently. You're expressing a lot of first world angst, but your position only makes sense if you'd agree that you'd not change the way the first world acted in the past if you could do so with your current knowledge. Two wrongs don't make a right.
It's easy to point the finger and demand that a rising nation stop claiming part of the nearby ocean when your developed country has already claimed domination over the entire Western Hemisphere, in large part Europe, and a good chunk of the Far East.
Frankly, the idea that anyone should be allowed to build a fake island to claim ocean resources that should be belong to the entire world is insane. Put aside the environmental concern, if this is going to be the rule then we, and our allies should also, as a matter of national interest and security start building islands ourselves everywhere we can. Heck, let's solve 2 issues at once, we build fake islands, and new illegal immigrants can get automatic citizenship if they agree to populate them to establish our claims.
