How serious is Taiwan for China? Dead Serious. I was born and grew up in Taiwan. Not everyone from Taiwan is a moron, you know.

How serious is Taiwan for China? Dead Serious. I was born and grew up in Taiwan. Not everyone from Taiwan is a moron, you know. 台灣對中國有多重要? 很重要. 我在台灣出生和長大。 不是每個台灣人都是白痴，你知道嗎. By Chiu Yu PhD in Physical Sciences, Major US University • Nov 14 2021

The link I am including at the end substantiates my answer well.

But before that, I am curious about one question regarding those Westerners also answering this or similar questions by dismissing the significance of this issue to the Chinese psyche, just because it doesn’t seem like a big deal to them.

Where did you get the blind audacity to claim you understand the Chinese perspective?
Do you even speak Chinese?
How many Chinese history books and traditional literature, which have great bearing on the Chinese perspective, have you read and taken to heart?
How much Chinese history of the past 500 years, which is even more critical in shaping the Chinese mindset on this, do you understand?
How much do you follow the Chinese language media outside Western pseudo-news, like those in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, or even North America?
I satisfy all the above criteria. And based on that, I gave my answer on the first line, substantiated in the link below.

You think you can just barge in and decide whether it is important to the Chinese based on your naive cost-effectiveness analysis, the way your mother-in-law decides whether her pizza joint is profitable?

If someone asks me, “Do American kids take Santa and the Tooth Fairy very serious?”, and if I answer “Oh, Nah, the kids think it is all bullshit!”, then I am being culturally ignorant, arrogant, chauvinistic, and audacious, and should be criticized and castigated as such.

Who gave you your audacity?

So maybe one should, to put it politely, just keep his quiet and not pretend he knows how important any such issue is to the Chinese, or Russian, or Arab, or Indian, or whomever, if he cannot produce proofs I listed above other than his crappy cost analysis learned from a third rate MBA school.

Actually this is advice for your own good. Just look at what happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Syria, Bahrain, etc.

I recently came across a book by a remarkable person named Danny A. Sjursen, a West Point graduate, US Army Major who has taught at West Point and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among other points he talked about, one is how little Americans, and I believe unfortunately more and more Europeans as well, know about the history of the world, and seem to think this ignorance can be compensated by some kind of blind patriotism. He is terrified by the fiascos in the making due to this ignorance (what a timely observation!)! One interesting thing he said is that this view of his is shared by his fellow teachers at West Point!

I am trying to convey the same message here. The general average Westerner perceives other cultures in his own image and is too lazy and ignorant to imagine there can be people who do not think as he does. It is very sad.

Thank you!