Well, depending on the context, “state” is often synonymous with “country” or “nation” – but all those terms seem to have some social and political nuance, as well. Taiwan really is a difficult case, in a lot of ways, because it’s politically infeasible to ignore the PRC’s claims over Taiwan, but at the same time there are clearly several reasons that Taiwan is separate from the mainland of China socially, culturally, and politically. Defining a country by nature really has to balance the views of the people within the given disputed territory, and the views of the outside. A country is hardly a country if nobody recognizes it as a country (like the example of Sealand given in the previous post) but likewise, if the people within a territory have no cultural ties or sense of unity and nationalism, calling it a country won’t make it true.

So I guess what defines a country is a territory that can both foster a sense of national unity and resolve outside disputes in order to gain recognition on a global basis. In broader terms, a country can be those territories where the line isn’t so clear cut, but the balance still remains.