> afraid to recognize Taiwan's independence.
I thought that both the government in Beijing and the government in Taipei both claim that all of China is united, and that they are the legitimate government of that united entity.
You're arguing semantics. The west refuses to recognize Taiwan as the legitimate government of China and refuses to recognize it as an independent country.
Whatever they claim, the west (and most of the world) due to Chinese leverage/power refuses to recognize.
Taiwan meets all the criteria for being a state. It controls land, population, it has a military, it has a government, currency, passports etc. etc. It's a de-facto country/state.
It's not semantics if Taiwan itself does not claim independence.
Taiwan buys military equipment and operates it's own military very much like it is independent of China and views Chinese troops in it's territory as a threat.
Correct. However "in it's territory" includes inside mainland China.
You literally described independence.
You're confusing land with governance.
I'm not. You'll notice that I used the terms correctly.
The government in Taipei claims all of mainland China and The island of Taiwan are united and a single state. As does the government in Beijing.
So you think North and South Korea are the same country? If not, which is the rightful country and which is the rebel? They both claim the same territory and that the other is illegitimate.
Do you think India and Pakistan are the same country? Or at least parts? There's a lot of disputed territories there.
Or do you believe Palestine is independent from Israel? They sure claim independence and Israel claims it's theirs.
Or what about the USA? The British sure thought it was theirs for a long time. Should France not have gotten involved in all of that?
So yes, clearly in Area A the Palestinians have limited sovereignty - limited only because they consistently refuse all attempts to provide them more sovereignty.
Perhaps the French should not have gotten involved. I can imagine an alternate history where the British rule over the North American continent. The great result of the American Revolution wasn't the independent United States. The great result of the American Revolution was the implementation of a government based upon secular values and equality for all before the law. And even with the tools in place to implement that government, it still took almost two hundred years to enshrine those values into society.And now, a mere two generations later, people have forgotten how hard the Americans worked to build that society and they are willing - active even - to discard it because of the few remaining minor deviations from perfection.