Taiwan in four words

I am just back from Taiwan, where I happened across a newspaper article that gave the official UN designation for Taiwan. Most countries have agreed to accept this wording, which is a bundle of diplomatic compromises.

So here it is: Taiwan is an...

independent, democratic, Chinese non-state.

Okay. So what is an "independent non-state"? And how can something Chinese be democratic? It's a wonderful contradiction that allows people to pick out the parts they like and ignore the rest. Kind of brilliant, actually.