Dungeness
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To be relevant as a world power, countries need actual power.
A China that was large sized version of Taiwan would today have a GDP roughly twice that of the US, or pretty much the combination of whole of the west.
That thing itself is world altering.
It is like saying if China were a British colony like HK, it would have had GDP 5 times what it is today. It is nonsense to compare a vast country with a small island that had the entire China's wealth to begin with.
Bigger Taiwan is still a chess piece played by others, but China wants to be a player.