Taiwan has been operating as a de facto country independent of China for almost 70 years.  In the past, the people who came to Taiwan with the KMT in 1949 harbored dreams of unification with China because that’s their homeland.  But nowadays, as those people gradually passed away, the younger generation takes it for granted that Taiwan is an independent country because they’ve never had any connection with China.  A lot of Taiwanese may actually have a negative perception of China because China loves to bully Taiwan in international events.  In a lot of events, China will ask the host country to kick out Taiwan’s representatives.  The “Gap incident” is another example.  People have no choice but to comply because they need China’s market.  These kinds of things happen constantly and I can assure you it does not warm Taiwanese people up to the idea of unification with China.  Sometimes China changes tack and tries to be nice to Taiwan, but at the slightest hesitation, they resort to military threats and bullying again.  It’s like a man trying to woo a woman with flowers, but if the woman shows the slightest hesitation, the man goes back to threatening with force.  Sometimes I feel like China’s being dense on purpose for some reason; surely they should know that this is not the way to win over the Taiwanese people.

China loves to cite our common ancestry, culture, and language as a reason for unification.  But if that logic flies, the US should never have became an independent country from the UK.

Long story short: China thinks Taiwan is part of China, Taiwan thinks it’s an independent country.

This is just my perspective as a Taiwanese.  Maybe someone from China can provide their perspective.  I’m not going to argue who’s right or wrong.

Taiwan’s official name is Republic of China (ROC).  China’s official name is People’s Republic of China (PRC).  You can see how that can be confusing.  There is an airline called China Airlines and an airline called Air China.  Can you tell which one is from China and which one is from Taiwan?  Most people can’t either.  Some people don’t even know they’re different and go to the wrong counter at the airport.  A lot of people in Taiwan want to just change its official name to Taiwan, but China threatens to bomb us to kingdom come if we ever do that since it’ll be like a formal declaration of independence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan

Here is the simple gross introduction of Taiwan and I hope you may appreciate this country.