Since the 1990s, Taiwanese citizens’ unification-independence stances have been a critical variable in electoral and voting behavior studies. While scholars generally acknowledge that these stances are not entirely equivalent to state identity, national identity, or party identification, the degree of overlap among these dimensions remains underexplored. Many reports and commentaries continue to conflate unificationindependence stances with state/national identity. The unificationindependence spectrum assumes a binary opposition between unification and independence and continuity across response options, with the middle labeled as “maintaining the status quo.” This study uses qualitative and quantitative methods to assess the validity of measuring unificationindependence stances. Qualitative analysis examines conceptual overlaps through a 2011 focus group discussion, analyzing how respondents with different partisan leanings integrate unification-independence stances, national identity, and party identification into their views on state identity. The quantitative analysis applies multiple correspondence analysis to nationally representative survey data from 2020 (N=1,190) to evaluate latent associations among these measures and the continuity of response options. Both approaches reveal that unification-independence stances do not fully align with national, state, or partisan identities, and the scale’s response options lack internal continuity. This finding of a “discontinuous spectrum” extends prior scholarly critiques and offers new insights for researchers studying national identity.