[Dr. Marten]

"Taiwan, located off the coast of mainland China, claimed independence from the communist country in 1949"

Now there is a line of B.S. that runs a mile long.

I trust that I don't need to repeat the fact that Taiwan has never belonged to Mainland China at any moment during modern times. How does one sovereign country declare independence from a nation that it never belonged to?

[Filibuster_60]

I trust that I don't need to repeat the fact that Taiwan has never belonged to Mainland China at any moment during modern times. How does one sovereign country declare independence from a nation that it never belonged to?

Well, since WWII nobody has ever recognized Taiwan as anything other than a part of the blurry notion of "China." When they had nation-state status from 1949 to 1971, it was only as "Republic of China" under Nationalist (KMT) rule - the Communists weren't recognized by the UN for those 22 years. Since then Taiwan's become an independent nation-state in all but name, though it's not likely it'll ever gain international recognition as such. So if we ask the Chinese "When was Taiwan ever part of China?" they'll simply respond "When was Taiwan ever recognized by the international community as a sovereign non-Chinese state?"