What Makes America's Relationship With Taiwan So 'Special'?

For 20 years, Taiwan was China - at least as far as the United States was concerned. When the Communists won the war to rule the Middle Kingdom in 1949, the U.S. kept its formal ties with the Nationalists, now based on the island of Taiwan, only 120 miles from the mainland.

But even when recognition moved from Taipei to Beijing, the US kept selling weapo…