Taiwan Is a Civilization (opens in new tab)

I've understood it like this : Taiwan is a successful, politically stable liberal democracy. It's existence contradicts the CCP stance that democracy is inherently Western and inconsistent with Chinese culture. [* I have no citation for this, I feel I've read it multiple times ] The CCP stance delegitimises Taiwan and the example of Chinese democracy it represents. Military pressure adds to this, because it creates uncertainty that Taiwan will be able to maintain control over its territory in the future, and pushes Taiwan to need support from the US, which feeds the argument that it is not a true free standing Asian country, but an artefact of foreign incursion.

China is a big powerful country. But that shouldn't be surprising. I think you can argue that China has been the most important centre of human civilisation and scientific progress for most of human history.

I wonder whether the CCP are concerned that mainland Chinese would otherwise look across the Taiwan Strait, and rather than thank the CCP for the success of recent decades, would instead wonder how much better life might be if China was more like Taiwan.

They would control the most critical high tech manufacturing hub and significantly extend their base of operations.