If you’re looking for a mate, it’s common sense to at least try to make yourself look attractive.

Howard W French notes that China’s most recent attempt to improve relations with Taiwan will unlikely generate much support on the island. Despite the friendly gestures, to the Taiwanese the mainland remains an ugly suitor with an unduly aggressive personality:

Whatever their feelings about popular mores next door, Taiwanese are united across political lines in their disdain for China’s heavy-handed authoritarianism, weak rule of law, official corruption on a vast scale and yawning gap between rich and poor.
“The fact is, the mainland’s economy is not as good as Taiwan’s yet,” said Chen Kongli, a professor at the Taiwan Research Institute at Xiamen University, in China. “And they think the political democracy is not as advanced on the mainland as in Taiwan. These are the two things the Taiwanese people are most proud of, their economy and their democracy.

If China wants a marriage with Taiwan, it had best make itself a more pleasant potential spouse:

David W.F. Huang, vice chairman of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, said: “In 50 years’ time, people may change perspective, but only if China genuinely changes, if China becomes a true democracy, which means at least that it should tolerate a difference of opinion, like Canada, which gives Quebec a choice, so long as it respects certain procedures. The problem is that China will not do that.”

UPDATE: ESNW provides a translation of a similarly themed and more important article from - amazingly - the Communist Party-controlled China Youth Daily.:

Whereas a New York Times columnist might have written an article about the China-Taiwan situation in terms of abstract dualities such as democracy-totalitarianism, capitalism-socialism, nationalism-separatism or independence-unification, Lung Ying-tai proposes a more concrete and personal approach.

…the people of Taiwan never thought they had to "separate" from the government on mainland China, because they have never belonged to or obeyed that government.
From the viewpoint of a military "superpower", the attitudes of the people on the island of Taiwan may be scorned.  But if you want to understand the people of Taiwan, then these ingrained historical feelings and psychological mindset ought to the first basic lesson for any understanding.
People in Taiwan are accustomed to living in a democratic system.  This means that the democracy system holds the same place in their daily lives as as daily necessities such as tea, rice, cooking oil and salt.