ray,
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Why does Taiwan want to maintain a different identity?
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over 100 years of living a rather different lifestyle, different experiences, and even a slightly different form of a writing system- that tends to do it.
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If Hong Kong and Macao can merge and still survive, can't Taiwan with some special mechanism such as what India has in Kashmir, where non Kashmiris cannot settle or buy land or carry out commercial activities?
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the latest offer coming from the PRC is that taiwan is to keep everything it currently has, even the government and military if it so wishes, and that PRC officials will not be coming to taiwan. in return, taiwan acknowledges PRC sovereignty and gives up its own foreign affairs.
that's better than what HK gets.
however, taiwan is not HK. it's been ruling itself for as long as the modern-day PRC- not as a colony- and has been democratic for roughly the last 15 years.
there's simply no incentive, past perhaps cultural incentive and some small economic incentive, for taiwanese to unify with the mainland. as the economies grow further intertwined, the latter will grow more dramatically. and then taiwanese may re-think the idea of unification...
one point which many people do not realize is that out of a population of some 23 million, some 1 million taiwanese businessmen are in china! for a country that depends on conscription (although this is being re-thought), well, that's not a pretty security situation.
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Or is it because the US requires Taiwan as a launch pad for eventualities in the future?
If so, the US must more cogently and recognisably support Taiwan.
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it may choose to do so if it feels that china is going to be an undeniable enemy. of course, such a move would instantly create a deep freeze in relations, so if that happened, US-PRC relations would probably have been in the toilet anyways. as it is, the US does no more than keep a version of containment-lite around china, all the while watching.