New Taiwanese

In a 1995 speech, Lee Teng-hui proposed that Taiwan needed to establish a new sense of "community of destiny" consciousness to deepen Taiwanese democracy. In 1998, Lee officially introduced this claim, hoping to use it to resolve Taiwan's long-standing national identity issues and form a collective Taiwanese consciousness. During the 1998 Taipei mayoral election, Ma Ying-jeou used this as his main campaign theme, successfully defeating Chen Shui-bian to be elected as the Mayor of Taipei, allowing the Kuomintang to regain control of the Taipei city government. In the 2002 election, Ma Ying-jeou continued to use this slogan.

In his book New: The Stance of Taiwan, Lee Teng-hui argued that the New Taiwanese represents a form of civic nationalism.^[1] This differs from the "Old Taiwanese" defined by ethnicity and bloodline. Instead, "New Taiwanese" is a nation formed under a common Taiwanese consciousness based on identification with Taiwan and identification with democracy. This claim was used to establish the concept that Taiwan and China belong to different countries, and that Taiwan is not a subordinate state of China.^[2]

• Lee Teng-hui, "The Meaning of New Era Taiwanese" Archived 2023-11-18 at the Wayback Machine