Listening to the general attitudes on offer in our media about China, I think it's easy to forget the broader context and what our actual official stances are on topics like Taiwan. There is so much rhetoric, but almost none of it is grounded in history or our own legally binding agreements. First, why is it so important that Taiwan remains part of China, I guess we can also throw the South China Sea in here. Trade is the absolute major factor in this region, the Chinese economy and our own critically depend on Chinese exports. China has to protect, its trade routes, exiting major Chinese ports, passing Taiwan into the South China Sea, down and out through the Malacca straits. The US is trying to control this region, like a foot on the throat of the Chinese economy, so China has been building their navy and island outpost to protect this passage. In contrast the US still upholds and enforces the 200+ year old "Munroe Doctrine" which deems any interference in the entire western hemisphere by foreign powers as a hostile act, with the Cuban Missile crisis being one of the major modern examples. Second, it's all about history. The opium wars in 1839 was the start of what the Chinese call "The century of humiliation". Here the British and US used the mass importation of Opium to undermine China, their dominance in exports like textiles, tea and most importantly silver, their choice of payment. A huge proportion of the Chinese people fell into opium addiction and when the government tried to force Britain and the US out, the British invaded, eventually winning and forcing the Chinese to give them Hong Kong and open other ports for more Opium imports. Next is the Japanese invasion of China in WW2, Japan actually took over Taiwan during the First Sino-Japan war in 1894. Then in 1937 the Japanese took the opportunity to use Taiwan as what they termed an "Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier" to further invade China, the Philippines and other SE Asian countries. This ruined half of China and left 20 million Chinese dead. This history is very much alive in Chinese strategy today and their determination to never let these sorts of events occur again. The US have even used this "Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier" term when talking about their strategy with Taiwan. Third, our official positions on Taiwan as part of China. China eventually went on to defeat Japan, doing the bulk of the heavy lifting in "winning WW2" in the Pacific region. The US and UK agreed with the nationalist leader of China at the time, accepting that Taiwan had been stolen by the Japanese and it was returned to China. Later Mao led a peasant uprising, overthrowing the nationalist government of China and reuniting regions that had drifted away. In 1971 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 (XXVI) recognized the People's Republic of China (PRC) as "the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations" and removed "the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek" (referring to the then-authoritarian Kuomintang regime, Taiwan ROC). This was challenged by Taiwan in 2007 and rejected by the UN. The US and Australia both officially recognise China and the "One China Policy". "The Australian Government recognises the Government of the People's Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China, acknowledges the position of the Chinese Government that Taiwan is a province of the People's Republic of China..."

@KathrynDiss isn't news supposed to be factual? Not a creative writing exercise... "So, Vladimir Putin appears to have done the unthinkable: striking a deal with his friend's enemy." Don't you mean the US? No mention of Timber Sycamore? en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timb…