I want to make clear, Professor Laliberté, that I never claimed the Republic of China was a legal fiction. The legal fiction I was referring to was the odd situation—unique in human history, in fact—where a country purports to represent a larger entity and where another country purports to represent that exact same larger entity.
I fully understand what you're saying. I was discussing it with people from Taiwan yesterday. I realize that a change of name would be sufficient justification to trigger an armed conflict.
Nevertheless, how do you reconcile, on one hand, Taiwan's renouncing its claim that it represents all of China and the feeling the Taiwanese people have of being less and less Chinese and more and more Taiwanese with, on the other hand, the fact that the state's official name contains the word China?
I realize they can't change the name, but how do Taiwanese authorities deal with that paradox, if you will?