> You're absolutely correct, but de facto is not de jure. I'd say the existence of the de facto recognition is more significant than the lack of de jure recogn

> You're absolutely correct, but de facto is not de jure. I'd say the existence of the de facto recognition is more significant than the lack of de jure recognition. There's no real central authority in international relations, so the official statements and pieces of paper are pretty meaningless without the de facto actions of the countries in question back them up. > There's nothing easier to do than for China to point to this policy and say America is sending troops to an internal conflict in China. It's easy for the PRC to say whatever it likes, who else cares is a different matter.