Well, no. Every single international body has always recognized one China, referred to as China. The UN, the WTO, the Olympic Committee, etc. wouldn't be caught dead referring to the ROC by its legal preferred name. It's why we have fictions like "Chinese Taipei."
Taiwan would probably does not care about its Qing-era claims one way or another; the only reason the status quo is maintained by both parties is that it allows the PRC to ignore what is de facto a breakaway independent province. Being okay with Taiwan existing as just Taiwan is a slippery slope that could potentially lead to Catalan-style separatism not only in Tibet and Xinjiang, but in strong regional centers of power like Guangdong and the Shanghai area.
> Well, no. Every single international body has always recognized one China, referred to as China. The UN, the WTO, the Olympic Committee, etc. wouldn't be caught dead referring to the ROC by its legal preferred name. It's why we have fictions like "Chinese Taipei."
> Taiwan would probably does not care about its Qing-era claims one way or another; the only reason the status quo is maintained by both parties is that it allows the PRC to ignore what is de facto a breakaway independent province. Being okay with Taiwan existing as just Taiwan is a slippery slope that could potentially lead to Catalan-style separatism not only in Tibet and Xinjiang, but in strong regional centers of power like Guangdong and the Shanghai area.
You start by writing "Well, no", but literally nothing in your reply contradicts anything in mine.
The Qing acquired Taiwan violently in 1683. China lost Taiwan to the Japanese after
the Qing's defeat in First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895). China ceded Taiwan to Japan on 17 April 1895. Japan lost Taiwan to the Allies after the Japanese defeat in WW II. Unfortunately, the relevant peace treaties (Treaty of San Francisco [1] and Treaty of Taipei [2]) did not specify Taiwan's exact legal status (that is the root cause of the today's legal status of Taiwan). But important: those treaties did not say that Taiwan was a part of China.
Note that all three, Qing, Japan and the US acquired Taiwan by force.
The thing that really connects China and Taiwan is ethnicity. Almost all Taiwanese citizens are descendants of people who migrated from the mainland (including the 'aboriginals', who just migrated much earlier). Note that Taiwan became an island only about 10000 years ago, when sea levels rose. Taiwan was joined to the mainland before.
Catalan-style separatism
As Taiwan is not a breakaway province, the situation is not comparable to Catalonia.
There is another dimension to China's will do subdue Taiwan, probably the most important reason: Taiwan's thriving democracy, which undermines and contradicts the Chinese Communist Party claim to power, which includes the narrative that democracy is neither needed nor wanted, nor desirable for the Chinese people.
In this regard it's important to be aware that Taiwan is observing keenly what's happening in Hong Kong, and the results are not pretty, from [3]: "The Hong Kong example, whose success was ostensibly meant to persuade the Taiwanese that their future lies with China, now proves beyond doubt that the terms, whatever they are and binding though they may be under international law, would be changeable or expandable, subject to revisions or elision by the CCP."
Yet another reason is geo-strategic. Taiwan's location is ideal for controlling and interrupting shipping to/from China, and to launch attacks on the mainland. China doesn't worry about Taiwan itself, but China does not want competing powers (now the US, in the past Japan) sitting in Taiwan. (For the same reason, China supports the current situation in North Korea.)
Perhaps I'm misinformed, but I've heard that prior to the handover, neither Portugal nor China particularly wanted Macau, as it had a reputation for being a lawless mess. Certainly it has improved greatly in the decades, but it's less than a tenth of the population of HK, much less Taiwan, and so likely a territory that Beijing can afford to be hands-off towards.
Macau is also not exactly a shining example. It is very small, and extremely dependent on a single industry subject to Chinese whims.
> After years of steady growth, the city's gambling revenue posted year-on-year drops for six straight months from June. The annual total for this year is widely expected to fall below the figure for last year -- 360 billion Macau patacas ($45 billion).
> The city's gross domestic product in the July-September quarter decreased by 2.1% from a year earlier for the first economic contraction in five years due mainly to the slump in the casino industry, which accounts for nearly half the economy.
Agreed. Macau is neither an accurate nor a desirable model for Taiwan to examine when imagining a future with China. Hong Kong isn't much better, either. It is a third the population of Taiwan, and lacks the bitter history of the Chinese Civil War that Beijing and Taipei share, not to mention the issues related to indigenous peoples pre-'49.
Taiwan would probably does not care about its Qing-era claims one way or another; the only reason the status quo is maintained by both parties is that it allows the PRC to ignore what is de facto a breakaway independent province. Being okay with Taiwan existing as just Taiwan is a slippery slope that could potentially lead to Catalan-style separatism not only in Tibet and Xinjiang, but in strong regional centers of power like Guangdong and the Shanghai area.