The Independence-Unification Spectrum: Four Stances Plus One Status Quo, An Identity Map Quietly Redrawn Over Thirty Years

On May 13, 2026, the Trump-Xi meeting. During his visit to Beijing, Trump was asked about Taiwan and dropped a line that would later be repeatedly quoted: Taiwan is "a place — nobody knows how to define it."¹

Lai Ching-te responded twice within seven days.

On May 17, he posted five points on social media, the first of which read: "Defend the status quo of the Republic of China; there is no Taiwan independence issue."² Three days later, on May 20, at the DPP Central Executive Committee meeting, he made a longer statement: "Whether the name is the Republic of China, Republic of China Taiwan, or Taiwan, it is already a sovereign independent state."³

Three names were placed in the same sentence: Republic of China (used by the deep blue), Republic of China Taiwan (the working concept of Tsai Ing-wen after 2020), and Taiwan (the target state name of the Taiwan independence camp). A president compressed these three names into the same sentence "all are sovereign independent" within seven days. From the outside, it looks like political rhetoric, but from the perspective of the independence-unification spectrum, this is the most honest epitome of contemporary Taiwan: no single name is sufficient on its own.

30-Second Overview: Taiwan's contemporary independence-unification stances are no longer a binary of "unification vs. independence." The academic community has organized them into four stances (Taiwan independence / ROC independence / ROC unification / being unified) plus one fallback (maintain status quo). In the NCCU Election Study Center's 1994 survey, "forever maintain status quo" was 9.8%; by December 2023, it rose to 33.2%, a 30-year high; during the same period, "unify as soon as possible" slid from about 5% to 1.2%. The weight on the spectrum has migrated from the two poles of independence/unification toward the center, and the largest chunk is not any active stance, but "don't move yet." Lai Ching-te's May 20 statement compressing three names into one sentence is the version of this spectrum written into the president's mouth.

Why "Unification vs. Independence" Cannot Describe Today's Taiwan

"Are you pro-unification or pro-independence?" This question was effective in the 1990s, when the combined population of the two answers approached the entire electorate. Today, asking the same question, the most common answer is "neither."

The NCCU Election Study Center has been tracking public preferences on unification and independence since 1994, providing the longest longitudinal data for this spectrum in Taiwan.⁴ The most dramatic change over thirty-one years is not at the two poles of unification/independence, but in the middle:

"Forever maintain status quo" rose from 9.8% in 1994 to 33.2% in December 2023, a 3.4-fold growth, the highest in this survey's 30-year history. If we add the 27.9% for "maintain status quo then decide," the single category of "maintain status quo" accounts for 61.1%.

The two ends continue to shrink. "Unify as soon as possible" slid from a historical high of about 5% to 1.2% in 2023, becoming less than a quarter of its original size. "Declare independence as soon as possible" remains around 3.8%. The remaining "pro-unification leaning" and "pro-independence leaning" combined account for less than 30%. The meat in the center of this spectrum has been growing, while the skeletons at the two poles are getting thinner and thinner.

But inside the "maintain status quo" category, there is actually another split along a more complex axis: identity.

The NCCU Election Study Center's concurrent surveys asked a more fundamental question: Do you feel you are Taiwanese, Chinese, or both? In 1994, the answers were roughly half and half, with "Chinese" and "dual identity" combined accounting for over 40%, and "Taiwanese only" at about 20%. By February 2024, in the same survey, "Taiwanese only" exceeded 60%, while "Chinese only" dropped to less than 5%, a historical low.⁵

Two 60%s placed side by side create a gap that the binary framework struggles to explain:

📝 Curator's Note: "I am Taiwanese" at 60%+, "Maintain status quo" at 61.1%. If the question were truly "unification vs. independence," then the 60%+ who identify as Taiwanese should choose independence, but they do not. The gap is not due to insufficient conviction, but because there is a position on this spectrum never described by the old framework: ontological identity (who I am) has separated from strategic preference (but I choose not to move yet). This is where Lai Ching-te's May 20 statement resides.

Lai Ching-te's placement of three names in his May 20 statement was designed. The Republic of China corresponds to the traditional ROC camp's residence, Republic of China Taiwan corresponds to Tsai Ing-wen's working concept proposed in 2020, and Taiwan is the target state name of the Taiwan independence camp. A single sentence simultaneously prevents any category from hitting the rocks, which did not exist in the binary framework era. But in the spectrum of four stances plus one status quo, it is a line that can be walked.

The Academic Origins of the Four Stances

Splitting "unification vs. independence" into four stances: "Taiwan independence / ROC independence / ROC unification / being unified" is now a common classification in political talk shows, but this framework did not appear suddenly on a specific day.

The decisive academic organization comes from Chen Fang-yu. He is a PhD in Political Science from National Chengchi University and an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Soochow University. On October 20, 2017, he published "What is Taiwan Independence? How to Classify Different Unification and Independence Claims?" in Vegetable Market Politics, using a tree-like classification diagram to divide stances into a "factual cognition layer" (whether Taiwan's current status is already independent) and an "ought-to-be layer" (which path the state should take).⁶ This article became the most frequently cited canonical reference in subsequent academic and political discourse, and was published in a more widely circulated version on Minnan Talk in the same year.

The mainstreaming of the 4-stance framework in public language occurred roughly between 2022 and 2024. Political commentator Huang Wei-han explicitly divided the four camps "Taiwan independence / ROC independence / ROC unification / being unified" in a June 27, 2024, The News Lens interview, and self-identified as ROC independence.⁷ He stated that this framework was "proposed two years ago," pointing to circulation within the political talk circle around 2022.

The higher-level academic source can be traced back to Taiwan nationalism research in the late 1990s. Shelley Rigger's works in 1999/2000 systematically described the rise of post-war Taiwan identity. Wu Yu-shan of the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica, used a "strategic triangle" framework to split identity, legal status, and economics into three dimensions for analysis. The accumulation of the discipline of Taiwan national identity is the foundation upon which the 4-stance classification stands.

Looking at the evolution timeline of the framework: In the early 1990s, it was still a binary of "unification vs. independence." After the first direct presidential election in 1996, the NCCU Election Study Center independently listed "maintain status quo" as a third option; after the 1999 Resolution on Taiwan's Future, "ROC independence" began to take independent shape in discourse; after Hung Hsiu-chu's "One China, Same Table" proposal in 2015, the ROC unification camp split into radical and moderate factions; in 2017, Chen Fang-yu made the canonical academic organization; in 2020, Tsai Ing-wen's "Republic of China Taiwan" inaugural speech incorporated the ROC independence discourse into the DPP mainstream; in 2024, Huang Wei-han brought the four-camp classification into the public language field. Over thirty years, it expanded from a binary to five categories, each with its own history and representative figures.

The framework itself has accumulated academic criticism: Hsiao Yi-ching and Yu Ching-hsin questioned the measurement reliability and validity of the six-category unification-independence scale in the Taiwan Political Science Review⁸; EOISS (Wang Li Second Institute of Strategic Research) argued that a one-dimensional classification is overly simplified, and that the actual unification-independence spectrum needs to overlay multiple axes such as "economic and trade dependence on China," "cultural identity," and "generational differences" to have explanatory power⁹. This article adopts the 4-stance + maintain status quo framework as the academic canonical organization, but it is not a closed descriptive tool.

Taiwan Independence Camp: Nation-Building, Not Just an Idea

The core claim of the Taiwan independence camp is straightforward: Taiwan should be an independent country, and the state name should not be the "Republic of China." The ROC's constitution, system, and state name are legacies of a government-in-exile, and should be changed to the "Republic of Taiwan" or "Taiwan" through constitution-making and nation-building.

But beneath the single term "Taiwan independence" lie actually three different paths. The legal nation-building camp advocates establishing a new state through constitution-making and referendums, which is the most classical version of Taiwan independence discourse; the name-change camp advocates retaining the existing system but changing the state name (the most common proposal is "Taiwan" or "Republic of Taiwan"); natural independence is a stance gradually accepted by the younger generation after the 2014 Sunflower Student Movement: "Taiwan is already independent" is the default cognition, requiring no further action.

This path can be traced back to the 1960s. In 1964, Peng Ming-min and two students published the Declaration of the Taiwan Self-Determination Movement, advocating the overthrow of one-party dictatorship and the establishment of a new state; the three were arrested immediately.¹⁰ In the 1970s-80s, Shi Ming wrote The History of the Taiwanese for Four Hundred Years overseas, separating Taiwan history from the Chinese history narrative. On October 13, 1991, the DPP's 5th National Party Congress passed the Taiwan Independence Party Platform, formally advocating the "establishment of a sovereign and independent Republic of Taiwan," with Lin Tso-shui as the drafter.¹¹

1996 was the deepest setback for the Taiwan independence camp. The DPP nominated "Godfather of Taiwan Independence" Peng Ming-min for president, receiving 21.13% of the vote, the largest defeat in a national election since the party's founding. The post-election reflection directly led to a route transformation, and three years later, in 1999, the Resolution on Taiwan's Future was passed, with the party mainstream accepting the ROC independence discourse that "Taiwan is already independent, and the state name is the Republic of China."

The 2014 Sunflower Student Movement reignited a generational turning point. Surveys after the movement showed that the proportion of "identifying as Taiwanese" broke through 80% among the young, making "Taiwan is already an independent country" common sense for the 20-year-old generation rather than a claim.¹² This generation does not need to take to the streets for Taiwan independence; their default is already there.

Representative contemporary advocates include the Taiwan Nation-Building Engineering Team, the Taiwan Independence Action Coalition, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, and the phrasing of Lai Ching-te early in his term as Premier, where he called himself a "Taiwan independence worker." The academic version is constituted by Chen Long-chih's (Yale University) international law path and Lin Tso-shui's policy discourse. The Taiwan Independence Party Platform has never been frozen, canceled, or modified; it has only been covered by the 1999 Resolution on Taiwan's Future.

ROC Independence Camp: Tacitly Accepted, Incorporated, and Presumed

The thesis of the ROC independence camp is almost the mirror image of the Taiwan independence camp: The Republic of China was originally a sovereign independent state, continuing in Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu after 1949, and is not subordinate to the People's Republic of China. There is no need to declare independence again, but to defend the factual independence of the Republic of China.

There are three important sub-positions in this path. The Traditional ROC Camp legally retains the 1947 Republic of China Constitution's "Chinese Pomegranate" territory, but factually only exercises governance in Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu. The ROC Taiwan Camp was proposed by Tsai Ing-wen in her 2020 second-term inaugural speech, using "Republic of China Taiwan" as a working concept, keeping the state name unchanged but changing the connotation to focus on Taiwan as the subject. The Non-Subordination Camp was continued by Lai Ching-te in 2024: "The Republic of China and the People's Republic of China are not subordinate to each other," making the legal position of cross-Strait relations clearer than his predecessors; this discourse path can be traced back to the previous "Four Adherences" framework, and continues the extension line from Chen Shui-bian and Tsai Ing-wen's "not declaring Taiwan independence separately."¹³

The decisive academic anchor for the ROC independence camp is the Resolution on Taiwan's Future passed by the DPP on May 8, 1999. Co-drafter Lin Tso-shui added the two words "currently" before "State Name Republic of China," making those who favor independence feel that "there is a chance to change in the future," and making centrist voters feel that "the DPP is finally pragmatic." In July of the same year, Lee Teng-hui proposed "special state-to-state relations" (Two States Theory) in a Voice of Germany interview, which is another cornerstone of the ROC independence discourse.¹⁴

Over twenty years later, this route has incorporated the DPP mainstream. Tsai Ing-wen organized it into the "Four Adherences" in her 2021 National Day Speech: Adhere to the constitutional system of freedom and democracy; adhere to the non-subordination between the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China; adhere to sovereignty that cannot be infringed or annexed; adhere to the fact that the future of Republic of China Taiwan must be decided by all the people of Taiwan.¹⁵ Lai Ching-te's 2024 inaugural speech continued the same axis. The May 17, 2026, five-point statement after the Trump-Xi meeting and the May 20 DPP Central Executive Committee meeting's "three names are all sovereign independent" are contemporary variations of this ROC independence discourse.

📝 Curator's Note: The order of the three names in Lai Ching-te's May 20 statement was deliberate: "Republic of China, Republic of China Taiwan, or Taiwan." The first name soothes the deep blue and the US; the second corresponds to the working concept left by Tsai Ing-wen in 2020; the third opens a door toward the Taiwan independence camp's target state name. The sentence pattern "whether the name is X" itself is an extended version of Lin Tso-shui's two words "currently" from 1999: the same ambiguity strategy, growing from one word into a whole sentence.

The characteristic of the ROC independence camp is not how radical it is, but that it allows most people not to choose a side. The deep blue can say "Republic of China," the light green can say "Republic of China Taiwan," and the dark green can say "Taiwan," all three are covered. Contemporary Taiwan's political language can function to a considerable extent because this route untied the correspondence between names and stances.

ROC Unification Camp: Thirty Years of Shrinking

The ROC unification camp advocates that cross-Strait unification should occur under the banner of the Republic of China (ROC), not the People's Republic of China (PRC). The ideal scenario is for Taiwan to lead China's democratization, retaining the "Chinese Pomegranate" territory map at the constitutional level.

This path also splits into two branches. The Traditional ROC Unification / One China, Each with Its Own Interpretation is the 2000s blue camp mainstream version, accepting the literal meaning of "One China" but retaining the space for "each to express its own view": The Republic of China says it is China, the People's Republic of China says it is China, and both do not puncture this ambiguity. In 1991, the KMT passed the Guidelines for National Unification, writing the unification goal into policy documents; in 1992, the "1992 Consensus" was later positioned by the blue camp as the concretization of "One China, Each with Its Own Interpretation" (Beijing's interpretation of the same meeting is different).¹⁶ During Ma Ying-jeou's term from 2008 to 2016, this discourse was the mainstream framework of the ruling language.

The Radical ROC Unification / One China, Same Table / Quick Unification is the version proposed by Hung Hsiu-chu when running for the KMT presidential nomination in 2015. Hung advocated that cross-Strait relations should "One China, Same Table" (both sides reach a consensus that "One China" is the same China), and advocated "ultimate unification."¹⁷ Her stance was directly categorized by many commentators as "quick unification," a gray area between ROC unification and being unified.

📝 Curator's Note: Hung Hsiu-chu's stance is often directly called "being unified" or "pro-China" in public language, but in academic classification, most categorize it as "radical faction within ROC unification / quick unification," because she still advocates unification under the ROC framework, not accepting the PRC framework to absorb Taiwan. This discrepancy itself is worth remembering: when the mainstream of ROC unification shrinks to only 1.2% wanting to "unify as soon as possible," radical ROC unification will be pushed to the further end in public opinion. But classification is classification, and mainstream cognition is mainstream cognition; both should be seen.

The true characteristic of the contemporary ROC unification camp is shrinking. Since the 2020s, the deep blue majority has shifted to ROC independence (Republic of China camp), and the number of people explicitly advocating "unify as soon as possible" dropped to only 1.2% in the NCCU Election Study Center's December 2023 survey. Thirty years ago, ROC unification was still the KMT mainstream framework; today, the combined number of people advocating "unification" (under whatever banner) is less than 8%.

Being Unified Camp: Smallest Scale, Greatest Transparency Controversy

The core claim of the "Being Unified" camp (also often called "Red Unification") is to accept cross-Strait unification occurring under the People's Republic of China (PRC) framework, or to acknowledge PRC sovereignty over Taiwan.

This path is the smallest chunk in contemporary Taiwan in terms of scale. Even if we add the NCCU Election Study Center's December 2023 "leaning toward unification" 6.2% and "unify as soon as possible" 1.2% for a total of 7.4%, this 7.4% still mixes ROC unification and being unified stances, with estimates explicitly supporting the PRC framework being less than 3%.

But this path has the greatest controversy regarding transparency. The Association for Promotion of Unification in China (founded by Chang An-lo) is the most visible PRC framework unification group, having been questioned multiple times regarding its relationship with accepting PRC funds.¹⁸ The later New Party, Unification Alliance Party, New Alliance, and other groups are also categorized into this spectrum. The Taiwan judicial system has prosecuted "local collaborator" cases multiple times in the last decade, with defendants having varying degrees of connection to being-unified groups. Legally, these organizations still exist legally, but their transparency regarding external funding sources has long been questioned.

The "Being Unified" camp has a structural difference from the other three stances: The core debate of the first three camps is the "interpretation of the status quo" (already independent vs. not independent / whether to declare / whether to change the state name), while the "Being Unified" camp crosses a larger red line; it accepts being absorbed by another political entity. On the contemporary Taiwan political map, supporters of this path are rare, but its existence is an indispensable category on this spectrum.

Maintain Status Quo: Is It a Fallback or a Stance?

If ranked by numbers, "maintain status quo" is the largest chunk in contemporary Taiwan. But "largest" does not mean it is a stance; it is more like a default behavior.

"Forever maintain status quo" 33.2% plus "maintain status quo then decide" 27.9% equals 61.1%, the number from the NCCU Election Study Center in December 2023. The content of this 61.1% is the accumulation of the choice "do not move"; most people did not actively vote for either side of unification or independence. The Taiwan Democracy Foundation (executed by the NCCU Election Study Center) classification research further divides the public into three categories: Taiwan nationalism 26.5%, pragmatism 13.1%, and Chinese nationalism 18.7%.¹⁹ The sum of the three categories is far smaller than the 61.1% of "maintain status quo," because most people do not categorize themselves into any of these "-isms."

The internal structure of "maintain status quo" can be split into four layers:

• Cognition Layer: The cognition that "Taiwan (Republic of China) is an already independent country" exceeds 70% in most polls.
• Preference Layer: "Maintain status quo," 61.1% do not choose any active change.
• Action Layer: "Do not actively change the status quo," voting does not treat unification/independence as the main issue.
• Identity Layer: "Identifying as Taiwanese" exceeds 60%, which is an identity rather than a political option.

The sum of the four layers describes the same phenomenon: Taiwanese have chosen a side in identity, but chosen not to move in strategy. This overlaps highly with the ROC independence camp's claim, the difference being that ROC independence is an active stance (active discourse), while maintaining status quo is a passive preference (passive preference).

📝 Curator's Note: "Maintain status quo" is often criticized as "having no stance," but this criticism misreads strategic preference as ontological identity. Interviews show that most people choosing "maintain status quo" are not unclear about who they are; most are very clear that they are Taiwanese. They choose the strategy of "don't move yet," which is a different position from "I also don't know who I am." Confusing the two layers will misread the muscle of the entire spectrum.

Scotland, Catalonia, Northern Ireland, Quebec: Four Control Groups

Placing Taiwan's unification-independence spectrum next to other countries' independence/integration controversies reveals a larger picture.

Scotland 2014: Held an independence referendum on September 18; opposed 55%, supported 45%. The SNP (Scottish National Party)'s stance is similar to Taiwan's legal Taiwan independence camp: constitution-making and nation-building, new state name; the UK Labour Party and Conservative Party are similar to the ROC independence/maintain status quo camp, advocating deeper devolution but not independence.²⁰ The biggest difference with Taiwan is institutional: Scotland has a legal framework for the UK central government to agree to hold a referendum; Taiwan has no corresponding arrangement.

Catalonia 2017: Held an independence referendum on October 1; the Spanish Constitutional Court ruled it unconstitutional, but the Catalan autonomous government still held it, and the Spanish central government suppressed polling stations with police force. Independence support has long been in the 40-50% range. Catalonia is similar to Taiwan in the structural situation of "independence referendum viewed as unconstitutional by the sovereign state and adopting confrontational means."

Northern Ireland 1998: The Good Friday Agreement established a long-term framework of "joint governance + Northern Ireland people's consent to decide integration." If the majority of Northern Ireland people choose to unify with Ireland in the future, the UK agrees to accept it. This design contains an element crucial to Taiwan: reciprocal commitment (equal commitments from both sides). The PRC's stance toward Taiwan has no corresponding design.

Quebec 1995: Independence referendum 49.4% vs. 50.6%, extremely close. The Canadian central government subsequently legislated the Clarity Act, stipulating that an independence referendum must have a "clear question + clear majority" to be recognized. This is a procedural solution for democratic mature countries to handle separation controversies.

The four control groups jointly show one thing: The core difficulty for contemporary democratic countries in handling independence/integration controversies is procedural legitimacy and mutual commitment. The difficulty on Taiwan's spectrum is not at the level of "which category is correct," but that the following four things have not yet been resolved in Taiwan's position: referendum legal framework, mutual equal commitment, sovereign state's legal recognition, and procedural clarity.

The Power of "Currently"

Back to the opening sentence.

Lai Ching-te's May 20 statement "whether the name is the Republic of China, Republic of China Taiwan, or Taiwan, it is already a sovereign independent state," and Lin Tso-shui's addition of the two words "currently" before "State Name Republic of China" in the 1999 Resolution on Taiwan's Future, are the same technique. Placing three names parallel in one sentence, and inserting the two words "currently" into a phrase, the purpose is not definition, but to preserve ambiguity so that everyone on the entire spectrum can stand.

Twenty-seven years ago, Lin Tso-shui added two words to support a resolution. Twenty-seven years later, Lai Ching-te used a whole sentence to support two statements within seven days. What happened in between is that the people on this spectrum expanded from a binary to four categories, and then from four categories, a "maintain status quo" chunk grew in the middle that is larger than the sum of the four categories.

The spectrum has been redrawn, but no one has officially announced that it has been redrawn. The representative figures of each category will not say they have stepped into another category, and every voter may not even realize they have walked out of the "unification vs. independence" question. Change has never been completed through a document, a grand meeting, or a referendum. It is a shape that has slowly grown over thirty years, piece by piece, in poll curves, in speech drafts, in party platforms not fully modified, and in resolutions not canceled.

What will the next version grow into? Does Taiwan's unification-independence controversy require a new document, a new dialogue, to re-weave the four stances and one status quo into a sentence clearer than "currently"? How long will this spectrum continue to be quietly redrawn?

References

Further Reading

• Resolution on Taiwan's Future — The decisive academic anchor of the 1999 ROC independence discourse, the starting point of Lin Tso-shui's two words "currently"
• Tsai Ing-wen — The proposer of the "Republic of China Taiwan" working concept, representative of the ROC Taiwan sub-spectrum in the ROC independence camp
• Lai Ching-te — The executor of the contemporary ROC independence discourse of "cross-Strait non-subordination," the protagonist of the May 20 three-names speech
• Taiwan Elections and Party Politics — The larger context of how the unification-independence spectrum reshapes blue-green routes with elections
• Taiwan's Democratic Transition — The historical background of the unification-independence spectrum's birth: from one-party dictatorship to competitive elections
• The Taiwan Strait Crisis and the Development of Cross-Strait Relations — The long-term trajectory of the unification-independence spectrum under continuous pressure from external forces
• The Invisible State — The context in which Tsai Ing-wen says "Taiwan is already an independent country" in this documentary