I live in Taiwan and did study Chinese here for 2 years. Lots of people come here to learn Chinese including anglos and yes I've heard the "china bad" reason for not studying chinese in china instead. or some people like traditional chinese (written script) more than simplified.
nah, most americans can't differentiate taiwan from thailand and wouldn't be able to guess what language(s) are spoken in taiwan at all. OR they might have a vague idea of taiwan when it was sort of the world's factory pre-80's.