All lines related to independence trend upwards.
IMO status quo as it stands is basically de facto independence. Policies adopted by the DPP is blatantly hostile towards the mainland. Remember, Pelosi visiting, US troops stationed on Kinmen, and TSMC sanctions are "status quo".
2019 uptick in sentiments was due to the USA-instigated riots in HK. It is starting to go back down. Sticking to status-quo in some way has always been the majority opinion for decades.
All your examples are recent developments. Status quo has not been static over the last 75 years. You have gone from open hostility to direct travel links. This wasn’t even really imaginable even as recently as the 90’s. As a point of comparison, try taking a flight from Seoul to Pyongyang. You’ll be picking missile fragments out from your behind… It was actually under the CSB-DPP regime (the same CSB who wanted to declare independence while PRC was not as strong, but discouraged by Bush Jr. for GWoT support) when the first charter flights were made. Once CSB left, regular flights were established.
Even under Tsai-DPP, they had to relent and allow critical infrastructure on their territory to be supplied by mainland (Kinmen fresh water pipeline).
Maybe one day status quo will be PLA base in Hualien, yet somehow DPP still exists. What would we say then? DPP still has to deal with reality too.
For closeness here's another one:
View attachment 130039
This time around CCG sent multiple ships to patrol the east side of Taiwan, this one got close enough to see the coast and even central mountain.
Actually that's an aspect of the exercise this time around that's different from before. There are multiple instances this time of PLAN working closely with CCG:
View attachment 130040
The type 22 with smaller CCG ship took place somewhere near one of the outlaying islands.
View attachment 130041
One thing to always remember with these exercises, the equipment is probably less important compared to the level of integration and coordination shown by forces. Here we can see direct coordination between Coast Guard and Navy. In the event of a conflict, Coast Guard should be effectively able to handle some auxiliary taskings from the Navy. ROCN actually has a similar concern as the Tuo-Chiang is also used by the ROCCG.
2022 we saw operational deployment of YY-20 and J-16D which are new platforms in those Taiwan exercises, so there is some forward thinking in utilizing future assets.
