What is the precious booty in Taiwan that both US and China badly want?

If you think China's problem with Taiwan is political, then you are missing this crucial understanding

At first glance, it seems that China is obsessed with maintaining the integrity of the monolithic one-China entity. From our Western point of view, it does not make sense at all. Why can’t China just let Taiwan go? After all, there are many examples of nations splitting apart and becoming the new status quo. For example:

• Ireland split from the United Kingdom in 1937

• Czechoslovakia split into two countries

• Yugoslavia and Soviet Union splitting into multiple nations.

Why is Taiwan such an extremely sensitive issue?

On one hand, the Chinese political philosophy of the Mandate of Heaven may be able to explain such sensitivity. After all, it is a political philosophy handed down from the ancestors of Chinese civilisation for thousands of years. This political philosophy dictates that there can only be one Mandate of Heaven. An independent Taiwan will violate this sacred political philosophy.

However, on the other hand, today’s China exists in the modern world of nation-states. The Mandate of Heaven is an ancient political philosophy that ended with the fall of the last Imperial Qing dynasty in 1911. Therefore, that alone cannot explain China’s sensitivity towards Taiwan.

So, what explains it?

You see, there is an economic booty in Taiwan that both the US and China badly wants. This economic booty is so strategic that it has both economic and military implications. Whoever controls this booty will dominate the global economy. That booty is so dangerously precious that wars may even be fought over it.

So, what is that booty?