Why can countries officially recognise both the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea as different political entities despite them both claiming to be the true Korea, but not the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China, instead having to choose a side?
My understanding is that “China” is special because they’re a founding member of the UN and have special powers due to that. After the civil war, neither Taiwan or China wanted to lose that power, so neither side wanted to be recognized as anything other than “China”. I’ve heard that the younger generation in Taiwan are more open to being recognized as Taiwan but China has kind of made that impossible now by threatening any country that doesn’t respect the “one China” policy.