independence referendum? such as the recent Catalan independence referendum in Spain? Why EU/US both rejected its outcome when the people of Catalan clearly made the case with a successful & peaceful independence referendum?
That referendum is an interesting edge case, as I wrote in my post above. Spain could have handled the Catalan issue much better, that is certainly true. One crucial difference is that neither the EU nor the Spanish government threaten violence and military invasion. This contrasts very favourably with Xi Jinping and his cronys incessant bullying of Taiwan.