THE idea that China and Taiwan might be separate countries, rather than estranged parts of "one China", is anathema in Beijing. So on February 9th, when Donald Trump told his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, that America would respect the one-China policy after all (having previously questioned this polite fiction), Chinese officials were profoundly relieved. So, oddly, was Taiwan's government, which thought that questioning the policy had been bad for Taiwan and scrapping it would have been worse.
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