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Either you've completely missed the point or, much more likely, I made the point way too clumsily and misled you. I wasn't presenting a worldview or anything like that, nor trying to provide a comprehensive accounting of all the factors at play.
I'm simply making an observation/claim: when conflicts are primarily feelings-based (deliberately a broad category - set up in contrast to more practical considerations like security concerns, economic considerations, and other more direct impacts - maybe "material" would be a better word?) there's a temptation and tendency for observers, even intelligent ones, to sometimes go "that can't possibly be the main reason(s), there must be some practical aspect I'm missing". They conjure up reasonable-sounding material reasons that either do not exist or are immaterial to the roots of the conflict, and assign them excessive weight. That's not to say emotional considerations are, ipso fact, irrational, nor to say that emotional considerations can't be strategic either; I merely observe the tendency for people to keep searching for non-emotional reasons even when they already have the most important pieces right there in front of them.
As the two most recent examples go:
Russia says they want to invade Ukraine to restore a pan-Russian empire. Western observers go "that seems like a weak reason to actually invade a country, so really they must be worried about NATO military aggression" when the reality is that Westerners just severely underrated Russia's own stated reasons.
China says they want to reunify Taiwan with force to restore a pan-Chinese empire. Western observers go "that seems like a weak reason to actually invade a country, so really they must be worried about US military aggression/encirclement" when the reality is that Westerners just severely underrate China's own stated reasons.
To extend it even a little farther, at risk of diluting my point, Dick Cheney and co say they want to forcibly export democracy to the Middle East. Western observers go "that seems like a weak reason to actually invade a country, so really they must be wanting more oil" when the reality is that Western observers just severely underrated the idiocy of neocons. This is a little post-hoc but I think it works.
To be clear, "historical legitimacy" is a matter of feelings. "National identity" is a matter of feelings. Politics, abstractly, are feelings. At least in the sense that they only weakly and indirectly correspond to the fundamental physical prosperity of a country.
I absolutely agree with you that it's actually of critical importance to understand that "hurt feelings" are powerful and need to be understood as valid - or at least, if not valid, then necessary to understand - and indeed are common motivations for conflict throughout history. I'm very aware of the seriousness of some of those feelings in the China-Taiwan issue. Ignoring and downplaying them is often the result of hubris and/or ignorance. But if we zoom out a little bit, that's still all they are, feelings! Whether strategically deployed or entirely organic, that doesn't change their nature.
From a moral perspective, I would further advance the argument that however understandable the above reasons might be, these are still bad/insufficient moral reasons to invade an effectively sovereign and separate country. That wasn't my main point however. Hope that clears things up.
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