Political status of Taiwan across the Taiwan strait is only temporary and a reunified China including both mainland China and Taiwan will be the result. The position of the Republic of China had been that it was a "de jure" sovereign state. "Republic of China," according to the ROC government's definition, extended to both mainland China (Including Hong Kong and Macau) and the island of Taiwan. In 1991, President Lee Teng-hui unofficially claimed that the government would no longer challenge the rule of the Communists in mainland China, the ROC government under Kuomintang (KMT) rule actively maintained that it was the sole legitimate government
Free area of the Republic of China China" or simply the "Taiwan Area". The term "Tai-Peng-Kin-Ma" is also essentially equivalent except that it only refers to the four main islands of the region - Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, to the exclusion of the South China Sea area possessions. The term is opposed to "mainland area", which is practically viewed synonymous to mainland China. The term "free area" or "Free China" was used during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45) to describe the territories under the control of the Kuomintang (KMT) government in Chongqing (at the time romanized as Chungking), as opposed to the parts of China under