Supporting independence does not inherently make a nationality. There are clear economic reasons for independence. There are also clear violent reasons for independence (remember the KMT tortured and killed thousands of people who supported reunification, which obviously had a psychological and social effect on the island's population)

Again Taiwanese isn't a nationality. Believing it is doesn't make it so. Just like white people thinking they're indigenous or mixed race Mexicans inventing Chicanismo. These things are historically constructed, not merely cynical fiat declarations.

The right to self-determination is not a blanket "right". The self-determination as an individual is a thing. The right to self-determination as a group is sort of a thing. But the right to self-determination as a nation is a very particular thing with very difficult to reason about limits. It's not just something you can apply based on feelings. And this is because the definition of a nation is very difficult to establish and it's different than the definition of a state. The right to self determination as a nation is not the same as the right to self determination as a state.

Taiwan is not a nation, it does not qualify for the right to self-determination as a nation.

There is no right to self-determination for a state or a government. The Taiwanese government does not have a right to self determination any more than the government of NYC or Paris or Yorkshire County or the province of Alberta.

And again, as usual, rights are tricky in themselves, because they have to be balanced against competing rights. Does any nation's right to self-determination include invading and subjugating another? No. Similarly, I would argue that ina MAD world, no one has the right to undermine MAD. Taiwan is militarily strategic asset to the US. It is very difficult to disentangle independence of Taiwan with vassalage to the USA. Were Taiwan to become "independent" and then sign a "defense pact" with the US that saw the US station nuclear capabilities on the island, this would not be self determination but submission to the empire for the purpose of subjugating others. No, that is not included in the right to self-determination as a nation. And again, Taiwan is not a nation.

The history of slavery in America actually gives rise to a legitimate claim of a new nation being formed, that of black African diaspora in America. Despite having come from various nations historically, the manner by which they came to their current culture fully severed them from their national identity by stripping them of their culture, their language, their religion, and their connection with everything in their past.

The history of Taiwan does not give rise to a legitimate claim of nationhood but instead reinforces the idea that Han living on Taiwan are part of the Chinese nation and always have been.

Words mean things. You have to stop starting from your assumptions and then arriving at your assumptions as though they are conclusions. You can't say history matters here but not there and conveniently keep carving our rhetorical space through special pleading for your preferred conclusion.

Look, I didn't understand any of this before I started researching it. It thought Taiwan was an independent nation and country. I thought Chicano was a real national identity. Hell, I thought the US was a nation. I have had to give up all my assumptions and follow the research, the literature, and the history.

Your example of Israel is great. It's a settler colony. It doesn't have a right to exist. There is no nation of Israelites. The majority of Israelis come from Europe. There were Jews living in Palestine long before the Balfour declaration.

Taiwan is a settler colony too. The Han Chinese displaced and assimilated the indigenous inhabitants of the island. But those settlers are the people who you are claiming make up their own nation. Your disdain for the Zionist claim is incongruous with your support of the claim of independence for Taiwan. You are making exceptions for your preselect conclusion. You are begging the question.

Basically, if you're forcing someone to move somewhere else, or are forcibly assimilating them into your country without any form of proper democratic input, I think it's wrong

The CPC agrees with you, which is why they have been committed to peaceful reunification for 50 years and why they want nothing more than for the US to stop militarizing the island so that the Chinese people can engage in dialog without the constant presence of US military and military intelligence making everything so much more complicated and dangerous. The CPC is convinced that the people on Taiwan will, over time, come to regard reunification as a positive force for good. They have no desire to force assimilation. Again, unlike every other country you are comparing China to, China is the only country with a concept of One Country Two Systems that currently functions incredibly well in giving literal nations self-determination within that multi-national state of China.

I think that the rights of people who live in Taiwan trump some claim based on territorial borders from over a century ago

I am so sick if you ignoring the imperialist interventionism that created this situation. The people on the island have been living under the protection of the US and UK because the imperialists desired to create exactly this conflict. This is not a pure example of self-determination, it is an ongoing cold military conflict between China and the US and Taiwan is being used by the US as a proxy. The US could take one very simple action of stationing nuclear missile defense on the island and hundreds of thousands of people on the island would die while American soldiers remained safe. It is definitionally a proxy. Stop acting like you can just pull the island into a completely abstract rhetorical space devoid of all context, all history, all international norms, all international laws, all relationships, etc. Yes, you are totally right about your position if we ignore literally everything except the simplistic moral framing that assumes words don't have meaning and that China has zero legitimate claim to anything ever. But that's not how these things work. You can't live in your head and expect to reach reasonable conclusions about complex topics like this.

Again, I implore you to engage with reality.

Like this thing you said:

Unless the people there vote to become a part of the PRC, the PRC has no right to annex them.

Even if the people there vote to become part of the PRC, the PRC would have no right to annex them. Words have meaning. Reunification would happen when the people on Taiwan vote to recognize that the island of Taiwan is already part of China and therefore they agree to place their local government into a One Country Two Systems arrangement with the PRC. No annexation. No colonization. No invasion. No assimilation. No subjugation.

And just to clear this up in case you were wondering: I am not an American.

I know, I looked up up. You're some kind of European. Europe's track record isn't much better than the USA's, considering Europe created the global white supremacist settler colonial system. The guilt and projection accusations will remain.