• Is Taiwan part of China? My Chinese students say it is, but my foreign

    From Rusty Wyse@21:1/5 to All on Wed Dec 29 09:59:54 2021
    John Savard
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    Lives in CanadaDec 15
    Is Taiwan part of China? My Chinese students say it is, but my foreign friends say it is not! What is the objectively true answer?
    Taiwan is part of China, but it is not part of the People’s Republic of China, the sovereign state most people mean when they say the word “China”.

    That’s because one has dealings with sovereign states - one can request a visa from one to visit its territory, for example. One can request a visa from the PRC to visit the PRC, and one can request a visa from Taiwan to visit Taiwan.

    The China of which Taiwan is a part is a historical nation. It includes both the PRC and Taiwan, but it has no consular offices, it issues no passports. It’s only an abstraction.

    That China is just like Korea. You can’t get a visa from the government of Korea to visit the nation of Korea. Korea is only a historical abstraction, not a functioning state. You can only go to the Republic of Korea, and get from its government a visa
    to visit South Korea, or to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and get from its government a visa to visit North Korea.

    So there you are. Taiwan is a part of China, but it is not a part of the PRC, and the PRC is usually what people talk about when they say “China”, because what the word China really means… is an area of land that has two differerent sovereign
    states in it, and the historic national entity that spans that expanse. The situation is complicated and confusing, but only if you let it be; not getting the two meanings of the word “China” confused makes it perfectly clear.

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