Taiwan’s position is no longer that it is the rightful ruler of China. That notion died with Chiang Kai-shek and nobody with a shred of a brain truly believes it.

The PRC won the fight over who “legitimate China” is when the UN gave them the seat for China. Also, one of these is an international superpower and the other is Taiwan.

This mostly correct.

But the US isn’t responsible for Taiwan’s increased interest in independence. Taiwan is.

After the Sunflower Movement and witnessing what happened to HK, young Taiwanese are overwhelmingly in favor of independence. So much so that independence has become all but stated as the platform of the DPP. The KMT is now the pro-unification party, but outside of the last mid-terms, they have been getting slaughtered in elections and had to tone down their pro-China rhetoric.

Status quo is definitely still the overall majority, but that is going to change with demographics and the next generation overwhelmingly favor independence.

As they should. China was not the first owner of Taiwan, and over the course of Taiwan’s history, their control of the island was relatively short. This is not even speaking of the Indigenous Taiwanese who are always left out of the conversation about Taiwan and have never been citizens of China or had Chinese heritage.

It also “arbitrarily” has its own currency, government, military, flag, infrastructure, foreign policy, trade deals, etc.

And anybody who knows the history of Taiwan and doesn’t perceive it to be an independent nation is willfully ignorant.