“Does it ever occur to ask the people in Taiwan, which is a democracy, what they think?”
akuperma: Did the US care that the people of the South wanted to secede and form the Confederacy? Did it occur that the people of Crimea wanted to secede from Ukraine?
If we allow Taiwan to secede from China, there’s no stopping the secessionists today in Spain (where Catalonia has already voted to secede), France, Bosnia (Republika Srpska) and others from seceding.
Everyone, including Taiwan (whose legal name is the “Republic of China”), acknowledges that Beijing and Taiwan are both part of the same country.
The British acknowledged China’s right to Hong Kong when they returned to it to China in 1997, despite the Hong Kongese preferring British rule.