There was a time when the term “pro-independence” was considered a synonym for radicals, outdatedness and irrelevance, similar to most people’s image of the pro-unification camp nowadays.
When former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was in power, the “pro-independence” position was hijacked for reasons of political expediency and so heavily propagated that most people became numb to the issue.