Hong Kong was legally handed over to China, but they had a 50(?) year handover period which they're breaking. Taiwan was never China's. A bunch of Chinese nationals went to China during the cultural revolution, and China would love to have Taiwan, but Taiwanese people are basically Chinese refugees and do not want that. China has been posturing to conquer them for years. My wife's parents (Taiwanese) immigrated to Canada during one of the periods of high tension between the countries. China was flying fighter jets over Taipei as an intimidation tactic.