I mean, it’s more complicated than that. Both declared themselves victor. Mainland went communist. The west couldn’t live with that so they propped up to authoritarian govt of Taiwan and ignored the communist government for 30 years, funding the murder of hundreds of thousands of dissidents. They couldn’t “capture” it without dragging themselves into the US’s cold war fever.
It’s only been the last 40 years that Taiwan has become democratic, and only the last 10-20 that the parties who wanted unification started to lose elections. Even then they keep wavering back and forth in elections some trying to tie more to China and some trying to break off entirely afaict.
I mean, it’s more complicated than that. Both declared themselves victor. Mainland went communist. The west couldn’t live with that so they propped up to authoritarian govt of Taiwan and ignored the communist government for 30 years, funding the murder of hundreds of thousands of dissidents. They couldn’t “capture” it without dragging themselves into the US’s cold war fever.
It’s only been the last 40 years that Taiwan has become democratic, and only the last 10-20 that the parties who wanted unification started to lose elections. Even then they keep wavering back and forth in elections some trying to tie more to China and some trying to break off entirely afaict.