In a new survey by the National Chengzhi University, just 2.4% of respondents called themselves Chinese.

That compares to the over 60% who feel they are Taiwanese.

About 30% consider themselves to be both

Taiwanese identity has been rising over the decades, while Chinese identity has been dwindling.

The survey also asked respondents how they feel about Taiwan's relationship with China.

To find out more about identity, I spoke with Lev Nachman, an assistant professor at the university that did the survey.

Can you tell us a little bit about the history of this survey and this year's results?

Yeah. So this is a part of an ongoing survey that NCCU's Election Study Center has been doing for decades now.

And really what the results find is, is nothing new.

It's sort of a continuation on the same trends that they've been tracking since the '90s, which is one: Taiwanese identity uh is continues to go up, Chinese identity continues to stay incredibly low.

People still overwhelmingly want the status quo.

People do not want either immediate independence or immediate unification.

And the people that do want any sort of unification are incredibly, incredibly, incredibly low.

Now, as you mentioned, most survey respondents said that they wanted to maintain the status quo with China.

When they say maintain the status quo, what does that mean?

Given the fact that we offer a choice between independence, status quo and unification, we see that people overwhelmingly do not pick independence and do not pick unification.

But they want this sort of thing that's in the middle.

Now, of course, how exactly people define what they mean by status quo, what will likely vary quite widely.

But you know, the important takeaway is that people do not want any sort of major change to Taiwan.

These days, Taiwan faces many challenges from China like ally poaching and trade restrictions.

When people say they want the status quo, are they expecting more of that?

I think Chinese voters have shown time and time again that they are pragmatic rational voters when it comes to Taiwan's future.

And they know that even though this weird awkward gray zone that Taiwan exists in is not ideal, it allows Taiwan to exist as a peaceful democracy.

Even though Taiwan's version of a peaceful democracy comes with all these caveats like threats from the PRC.

It's sort of awkward position in international order, all these economic troubles, diplomatic troubles.

But at the end of the day, voters know that, at the very least, given this situation, we can continue to exist peacefully.

And I think ultimately that's what voters want.

Will this survey affect, say, things like policy making?

You know, I think it's definitely something that people around the world, whether you're in, you know, Taipei, DC or any other capital, look to this survey very regularly, as sort of the data to show what it is that Taiwanese people want.

You know, we often talk about how it's very important that we center Taiwanese perspectives and that we center what it is that Taiwanese voters themselves want for their own country.

And it's data like this that policymakers around the world can say, "Look, we should not be trying to rock the boat for Taiwan in any particular direction because we know that voters in Taiwan do not want any sort of major change."