None of this is news, and the only reason it's now all over the place is probably because the State Department or some three lettered agencies gave a directive

None of this is news, and the only reason it's now all over the place is probably because the State Department or some three lettered agencies gave a directive to ramp up the propaganda machine. For those with longer memories, from 1949 to 1979, the US and most of the world denied that (the current) China existed and recognized Taiwan as China. The game has been played for decades now.