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Comment by stormdennis | Hacker News Reader

That's a less accurate analogy in my view, because Canada was never a part of the United States while Taiwan was a part of China. It's more like the losing side in a war within the USA, militarily taking over florida and declaring itself the government of the USA only to later drop that pretension and declare Florida an independent country instead. Would you be happy for China to meddle and arm the Floridians in that situation?

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Apples and Oranges. Florida, after the formation of the Union, was never as "free" or independent as Taiwan. China had their chance in the 30s/40s to stop formation of Taiwan, they didn't, and they lost claim to it. They need to just suck it up, but the macho leaders of the CCP will never accept that, so they keep poking the matter with a stick. Eventually there will be an internal calamity and the CCP will use war with Taiwan to unite the country. That's just the way politics works, if you have a common enemy it is a great uniter.

> because Canada was never a part of the United States while Taiwan was a part of China

Canada and the United States both claim to be nations that broke away from English rule. If we claim that common heritage means that Canada is rightfully part of the United States territory (in that we are the successor to English rule in the colonies) would other nations have the right to complain about that? Sure, they claim to be a separate nation, with a separate history of breaking away from English rule, but…

As long as we claim that it was always a part of the English colonies, then no other countries can complain if we claim their territory as our own?

That’s a neat trick.

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