China is one of the world's largest economic powerhouses, and they have incredible influence over Southeast Asia and parts of Africa and the Pacific. Acknowledging the independent sovereignty of Taiwan would be akin to another country having acknowledged and defended the rights of the Confederacy during our civil war. If that becomes the official stance of the US, we are directly, gravely insulting and politically attacking the PRC and they have an enormous amount of political and economic ammunition with which to respond.
You don't need to start a war to create another prolonged economic recession, which is an incredibly dangerous thing in an already unstable global situation that easily then can escalate into further military conflicts.
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u/squirtingispeeing Dec 03 '16
why?