No matter which side you ask, the Republic Of China (ROC) or the People's Republic of China (PRC) Taiwan isn't a country, it is a region of the country of China. Saying that Taiwan is a country satisfies neither the ROC nor the PRC's claims
Other countries are similarly sanctioned, and hundreds of maintainers from those sanctions are still there. So the sanctions thing is absolutely just an excuse.
What Linus just did to Russians is scaring a lot of people right now, who are probably wondering if they should keep working in association with a project which has just demonstrated its unreliability.
I mean, if your instructions were to quote some random name which does not exist, maybe you would ask your professor and he'd tell you not to pay attention to that part
Not even Taiwan claims to be a country though. They claim to be the sole legitimate government of China, hence their actual name, The Republic Of China, and not "republic of taiwan" or some other thing.
This shows that no open-source project can really be directed from the US, or if they are then a fork should exist and be maintained by BRICS citizens who are obviously viewed as lesser, at least in the Linux project.
This wasn't a decision made based on sanctions, it was just an excuse given but no actual evidence of Linux being required to act on them was ever given.
I don't think they mean "people who wouldn't have cats as pets", there are tons of valid reasons not to want cats as pets, such as the two you described, and I wouldn't say that you "don't like cats" given those two reasons
And apes are monkeys