But by this logic, China is already in control of Taiwan, no? So why is the CPC threatening an invasion?

Truth is that you can't really consider nations going through a civil war to be truly the same entity. I mean, they were literally fighting each other over control and claimed lands, bit strange if it's all the same China no?

China (led by the CPC) is claiming lands it never controlled that are currently in control of China (led by the KMT). They're de facto separate nation states, and the communist one does not and has never controlled Taiwan. Its territorial claims come from it claiming to be the successor state (or continuation state) of the Republic of China (officially, Mao declared the foundation of a new People's Republic of China).

This is a wildly different situation from e.g. Labour/Conservatives in the UK. Neither make competing territorial claims nor claim to both be in power at the same time. They also all serve the same government, which the CPC/KMT do not.

All of Palestine was declared Terra Nullus by the imperialist. It is they who setup the system of Westphalian nation-states. This is, as they call it, the rules-based order. The reality is that Palestine should have been granted nation-state status by the entire world decades ago, but racism prevented that from happening, and now we have the situation we have. Some nation states have officially recognized Palestine’s status as a nation-state, but it has not been enough and it is far too late to have immediate impacts.

Wow, that's convenient for your argument - what a remarkable coincidence. Some nations recognize it, others don't, so who's to say? It's just too complicated and too late. 1948 was soooo long ago, unlike 1949 which is recent history. Plus the cession of Taiwan by Japan after WWII was definitely unambiguous, unlike Israel/Palestine. No issues there at all.

As for whether my understanding is strange, I would ask you to consider why the KMT itself did not claim Taiwan to be an independent nation state for the 50 years where it was a one-party fascist dictatorship on the island. Why did they find it so important to establish that they were still a faction within China and not a secessionary movement away from China?

Do you consider the fact that the civil war never officially ended may be a mitigating factor here?

I didn’t decide that that’s what they would do. My understanding is fully inline with the understanding of the KMT and the CPC and the rest of official governments of the world. It’s really only the uninformed and the politically biased that have a strange understanding whereby the rules don’t matter, the never matter, and only what they believe is the correct moral answer, given their limited understanding, could ever be the right answer.

If that's the case, why did over two decades pass until the west recognized the CPC's state at all? Was everybody uninformed until Nixon educated us?

No. I'm not engaging with a disingenuous person with an obvious bias. You claim to know all about this issue. I'm sure you won't have a problem finding it yourself.

Expansionism can happen without official war declaration, but still a conflict. See: Tibet, Honk Kong, parts of Mongolia

You are not sane.
Either that, or it's your job.

Do you believe Taiwan is going to invade the PRC?

Just like Russia was doing completely innocent military exercises near the Ukrainian border in the run up to waging all out years long war on its much smaller neighbour. Oops, sorry, no, you don't call it that, you call it a three day "special military operation".

/s in case you missed it.

CCP didn't take it when the current Taiwan gov moved there, they only took the mainland.

That's literally the definition of how countries split in two

A divided China is a weaker China

This honestly feels like mental illness. Imagine rapist screaming at the victim "I can't get stronger unless we unite" while threatening to kill her.

Dude, get over it, Taiwan has moved on, they have their separate lives and don't want anything to do with China, just like Ukraine (who was part of Soviet union) does not want Russia and will likely result in a long and costly war. I too would go guerilla of someone tried to invade my country.

If a majority of the Taiwanese wanted to be ruled by CCP then it would already have happened

But... are you though?

That is completely untrue. Even Russia conducts its exercises mostly professionally and I don't object.

If you think what China is doing is a defensive exercise, you are so biased that you are unable to see reality. They are encircling sovereign territory and practicing for a land invasion and blockade to subjugate the Taiwanese people and steal their land. I would like to hear your explanation for how https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLA_Navy_landing_barges are defensive in nature.

The weapons that Taiwan has purchased is a direct response to Chinese imperialism, aggression, and threats. Taiwan is not threatening Chinese people, but the opposite is not true.