What is the Chinese argument for Taiwan being a part of China?

Taiwan is not a part of China, and I say this not because I was ‘brainwashed’ by Western education but by the reality of the situation.

-China (PRC) has no governmental authority over Taiwan

-Chinese need a visa to visit Taiwan

-Taiwan has its own currency and flag

-Taiwanese have their own passport

Aren’t these things enough to prove that Taiwan is not a part of China?

Of course, I have to address some of the arguments Chinese people commonly make:

–”Taiwan used to be Chinese territory and Japan unlawfully took it away and it rightfully belongs to China”

Yes thats how war works. When you lose a war, you lose territory. Why would Taiwan be any different? Singapore used to be Malaysian territory. Pakistan used to be India territory. Kosovo is a current disputed state that used to be Serbian territory. Hell if you want to go back to Qing Dynasty times, Texas used to be part of Mexico and Canada used to be part of the UK. Fact of the matter is just because something used to be part of your territory doesn’t mean it’s part of the current territory.

-”Taiwan is part of China according to Chinese constitution and ROC map shows mainland China as theirs so Taiwan is part of China”

This has to be most ridiculous argument. Just because a territory is legally written in the constitution as part of your territory does not make it so. Else the USA can just amend their constitution to include China as a US State and boom! China is now a state of the USA right? No, it doesn’t work like that. And mainland China being included in ROC’s map is just proof of my point here as well; how many Chinese would agree that ROC has control over mainland China? You disagree? Well that’s what the map says so it must be true right? North Korea still considers South Korea part of their territory on their constitution. Again, does the world think that SK is part of NK? I don’t think so.

–”Taiwan is not recognized by the UN as a country, UN recognizes China as the real China, so it’s not a country”

First of all, UN only accepted PRC as the rightful Chinese government over ROC when they saw that mainland China’s economy was catching up and surpassing Taiwan’s economy and thus it was diplomatically advantageous to recognize PRC as the “true” government, secondly UN does not determine who is a country and who isn’t. UN was only created in 1945 so does that mean there were no countries prior to 1945? China (PRC) didn’t join the UN until 1971 – previously ROC was representing China – does that mean mainland China (PRC) didn’t exist as a separate country until then? Makes no sense.

–”But Hong Kong has own visas, passports, own currency, own flag etc and you agree that it’s part of China.”

Hong Kong is a special case – part of the one country, two systems – and the important difference between Hong Kong and Taiwan lies here: China (PRC) has no governmental authority over Taiwan – it does have governmental authority over Hong Kong. In fact that’s what led to the currently ongoing Hong Kong protests.

I have yet to hear a convincing argument from mainland Chinese that Taiwan is part of China.

Edit:

here’s what I’m talking about (from a Chinese commenter)

1. You cannot use the example of a law to automatically make a territory part of your country. BOTH parties have to agree on this. Ie. USA cannot just make a law saying China is part of the US and BAM it’s now part of the US. That’s not how it works. So China making a law in 1980 doesn’t mean anything because Taiwan never agreed to this.
2. Already explained why Taiwan is not part of the UN and why UN doesn’t get to decide who is independent and who isn’t
3. Why does Taiwan have to change languages? That’s like saying every country which speaks English has to change their language else they are part of the UK
4. Again, just because something was part of your territory in the past doesn’t mean it’s part of the CURRENT territory. Somebody tell Italy they own most of Europe because the Roman Empire did that in ancient times. Somebody tell Mongolia they own most of central asia because they owned it in ancient times. Somebody tell Britain they still own most of the world. etc I could go on but you get the point.

Also I’m curious about this:

Mongolia and parts of modern India and Russia used to be part of Chinese (Qing) territory. Why don’t I hear about China wanting those areas back? They used to be part of China too. Hmm