taiwan

• As of January, only 12 countries and the Vatican officially recognised Taiwan.
• Until 2000, the nationalist governed Taiwan. However, in 2000, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was elected for the first time. They openly and outwardly supported Taiwan’s ‘independence’, which China deemed as a threat.
• The DPP declined to endorse the 1992 consensus in which Taiwan and the PRC agreed that there is only one China
• In 2005, China passed legislation of the Anti-Secession Law. Its purpose is clear in underscoring the intent to oppose and check Taiwan’s succession from China, or ‘Taiwan's independence’
• The Anti Succession law also declared China’s right to use ‘non-peaceful means’ against Taiwan if it tried to ‘secede’ from China.
• US: ‘preserve and promote extensive, close, and friendly commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people of Taiwan’
• 2023: Joe Biden signed off an $80 million grant to Taiwan to purchase American military equipment. According to the BBC, China ‘deplore[d] and oppose[d]’ the actions of Washington. 
• Tsai Ing-Wen to BBC (2020)

  ‘We don’t have to declare ourselves an independent state. We are an independent country already’