[starbase]

Taiwan has never been part of modern China. Since the Treaty of Shimoneski back in the late 1800s they were never even territories of China.

I agree with most of your post except for this. Taiwan has been a province of China for a whopping 12 years. 8 years from 1892 to 1900, when the Japanese took it away. Then 4 more years as the government which fled to Taiwan ruled all of China. So for those 12 years Taiwan was a province of China. Plus the fact that it has always been settled by Fukien Chinese, but people want to play a game with "politically" and "ethnically", Chinese, that's all rather disingenuous I think, and you don't have to be a commie to see that!

[maui_hawaii]

We can discuss details later. I am half asleep right about now. As for the semantics question, its all about semantics...get used to it if you want to hang around the Taiwan debate for any amount of time, here or elsewhere.