I had a friend who worked for the military in Taiwan diplomacy for a while and there’s a whole rigid structure around how we talk about it internationally that they hammer into diplomatic and military officials.

One of the things he told me is that the people of Taiwan have to be referred to as “the Taiwans” and not “the Taiwanese,” because the -ese ending might give the impression that we’re alleging a separate national identity, which conflicts with the official position we’ve maintained for decades with China.

So yeah, I don’t think this statement is worth reading into as anything other than a continuation of our long-standing position on Taiwan. Although admittedly, that position leads to some silly-sounding contortions of language.