本文旨在分析台灣始自八十年代中的民主政治改革及其對兩岸關係的影響。本文認為，在兩岸分裂分治及持續國際孤立的客觀條件下，民主改革及由此催生的公民國家無可避免地改變了兩岸關係的結構。在不斷上升的民意壓力下，新的民主化國家被迫採取新的取向處理台灣與大陸和國際社會的關係，特別是向前者尋求對等承認和向後者爭取形式的參與地位。與此同時，台灣變遷中的政形式亦與其他內外因素互為交纏推動，對兩岸將來的統一產生各種負面及正的影響。最後，本主回顧了兩岸關係發展的可能變數，並指出階段最理性的選擇是某種形式的「經雙方同意的自主性統一」。

This paper analyzes Taiwan's democratic reform beginning in the mid -1980s and its impacts on Taiwan-mainland relations. It argues that given the conditions of a divided China and Taiwan’s continuing international isolation, the democratic reform and the popular state thus resulted have inevitably changed the structure of Taiwan mainland relations. Under the rising popular pressure, the newly democratized state is forced to move forward to an active approach to its relations with mainland China as well as with the international communtity, specifically seeking from the former equal recognition and from the latter formal readmission. At the same time, Taiwan's changing political situation has a1so interacted with other internal and external factors and subsequently produced different impacts on future reunification with mainland China, both negative and positive. At the end, the paper reviews the various possibilities in Taiwan -mainland relations and contests that the most rational outcome at the present stage is some form of "agreed-upon autonomous unification."