This highlights a fundamental disagreement when it comes to establishing sovereignty. "Self determination" is the casus belli du jour (my god english is a rolle

This highlights a fundamental disagreement when it comes to establishing sovereignty. "Self determination" is the casus belli du jour (my god english is a roller coaster) of the post-cold war period. Kosovo gets to pretend to be a nation, and Transnistria gets 5+ official names and zero recognition. If you make it an Enlightenment style argument and arrive at sovereignty from some kind of expression of individuality, then you are inviting a world of endless Balkanization. If you look at sovereignty as a state at which societies within a hierarchy of civilization can arrive at, you create the necessary environment for an equilibrium of a sort, which is objectively more peaceful than fractured democracy. All this is to say that just because Chinatowns across the US decide to declare their allegiance to China does not mean the US has a moral obligation to recognize them OR that China can send soldiers on "working vacations" to the US front while supplying the dissidents via most likely San Francisco.