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Thank you very much for offering another perspective. However, regarding the part about Taiwan and China, I would like to offer some corrections and additional context.
While Taiwan may not have been historically as integrated with mainland China as Ukraine was with Russia, Taiwan was formally incorporated into Qing China’s territory in 1683 and remained so until it was ceded to Japan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War. Thus, Taiwan does have significant historical connections to China.
In more recent history, during World War II, the Kuomintang (led by Chiang Kai-shek) and the Chinese Communist Party (led by Mao Zedong) temporarily cooperated to resist the Japanese invasion. After Japan’s surrender in 1945, a civil war broke out between the two sides, ultimately resulting in the Communist Party’s victory and the Kuomintang’s retreat to Taiwan.
Although the PRC initially emphasized the goal of peaceful reunification, over time, shifts in domestic public opinion and strategic considerations have led to increasing support among the general populace for the use of force if necessary. That said, the official position of the PRC still emphasizes “peaceful reunification” under the “one country, two systems” framework.
I’m someone who grew up in China and have just recently reached adulthood, so there may be gaps in my understanding due to my environment and limited experience. If there are any inaccuracies, omissions, or misinterpretations in what I have presented, I would genuinely appreciate any corrections or further discussion. Thank you!<3
I believe you misunderstand.
The Kievan Rus' (or Kyivan Rus', I guess, now) is the first East Slav state founded in the 9th century, and the histories of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus start from this point (East Slavs having had no language prior to this point). This state was literally dominated by Kiev during its inception. The names of both Russia and Belarus are etymologically derived after this medieval state, and all three East Slavic nations claim descent from it. Ukraine is literally where Russian civilisation starts*.
Taiwan, on the other hand, is first settled by Austronesians and was relatively untouched by the mainland; the first real attempts at settlement beyond that actually came under the Dutch (who encouraged Han migration over to the island), then the portion of Ming remnants led by Zheng Chenggong who founded the Kingdom of Tungning, until its conquest by the Qing. Taiwan's prehistory lasts well into late Chinese imperial history, it was first properly settled under a European banner, and up until the Japanese invasion it remained a pretty marginal borderland — nobody would think much about it if there wasn't another straggler "Chinese" government trying to set up shop there!
A more analogous comparison to Russia and Ukraine, for (a state of) China, would be if it no longer controlled large swathes its cradle of civilisation — if it "lost" parts of the North China Plain including Anyang and Luoyang, say. Maybe consider an alternate timeline where the Ming somehow doesn't reconquer the North China Plain and the Northern Yuan end up setting shop there indefinitely, or the Southern Song don't fall to the Yuan and no Han-dominated state ever is able to claw back land above the Huai river, or the Northern and Southern Dynasties doesn't end with the Sui, or the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms permanently entrenched a north-south split, and now a modern alt-Chinese government based in the south, claiming descent from those alt-dynasties, is engaging in a little taste of revanchism some few centuries late by appealing to how northerners and southerners are actually one people and should be ruled together.
Edit: better examples. None of those really match exactly; Moscow actually came into prominence during/after the Mongols, so an even better example would be if somehow the Yuan got pushed into a rump Southern state and centuries later the descendant states of the Southern Yuan decide to march back up, but this is a bit too ludicrous
*also where Ukrainian and Belaroussian history starts — I am not making a case that Kyiv is especially Russian, or that Russia has a good case for invading Ukraine
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I did not mean to imply that there were no historical ties between Taiwan and China, only that Taiwan is not thick with collective memory for Chinese people the same way that Ukraine is for Russians or say Kosovo is for Serbians. No Warring States philosophers, Three Kingdoms generals, or Tang Dynasty poets ever lived, fought, or even set foot there, and Han settlers only arrived in Taiwan in large numbers at about the same time the US (i.e. a country "with no history" according to most Chinese) was being colonized by the British.
For what it's worth, while I feel the need to point out that the cultural, linguistic, and political differences between Taiwan and mainland China are already greater than those between the 13 colonies and England on the eve of the American Revolution, I don't have any firm position on Taiwanese independence, only that fighting a major war in East Asia would be a catastrophe and probably lead to at least a half dozen of the greatest cities in the world being blown to pieces by missiles and drone strikes, since Japan, Korea, etc. would likely be dragged in. However, I can tell you that my relatives in Taiwan have in the last five years gone from being dyed-in-the-wool Chinese nationalists (as in they would be insulted if you called them Taiwanese) who wished for reunification to basically the exact opposite position (China is the enemy, we are not the same). I don't consume enough Chinese language media and news to be able to tell if this is based on an honest assessment of PRC statements and positions in recent years, or whether they have been sucked down a social media/propaganda rabbithole of some sort, but presumably the latter is at least a contributing factor, and this does not bode well for the future stability of the region.
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