1. Saying that Chiang Kai-shek was the "founder of Taiwan" is historically inaccurate and insulting. Taiwan is the name of the island and has been called that for 4 centuries. The Republic of China, whose illegitimate remnants retreated to TW in 1949, was founded by Sun Yat-sen.

2. To say that Chiang Kai-shek "founded" Taiwan in 1949 ignores the fact that Taiwan was returned to the then-legitimate ROC in 1945, and glosses over the mishandling of contradictions by the KMT that culminated in the February 28th Incident in 1947.

3. Was a new state established by Chiang? No. Was his government renamed Taiwan? No. From his perspective, Taiwan was the only province of the "Republic of China" left that had not fallen to the communists.

4. He may have been an anti-communist bastard, but he was a Chinese nationalist who opposed the creation of a “two China” situation. This was his point of unity with Chairman Mao Zedong.

5. Yes, this was a contradiction that paved the road for forces of separatism to emerge, but this doesn't change the fact that both he and Mao saw the conflict between the CPC and the KMT as two competing entities claiming sovereignty over the entirety of China, including Taiwan.

6. Unlike the DPP today, who view the issue between Taipei and Beijing as an international issue (despite what both constitutions say), Mao and Chiang viewed the issue as a domestic struggle. This is a point I keep highlighting that even pro-China westerners struggle to get.

7. Tldr: Taiwan, the "Republic of China," and the KMT are not interchangeable names for one another. They all refer to different things. Yes, there are significant overlaps, but they are not one and the same. This is one thing that all sides of the cross-strait issue agree on

8. Now that I think about it, I think part of why people have this misconception is due to the fact that Taiwan was known as "Formosa" by westerners until more recent decades, so it appears as if CKS renamed it to Taiwan. However it has been known as Taiwan for 400 years.