There is a thin line between rapprochement and selling out. The first meeting between the presidents of China and Taiwan in six decades represents an historic breakthrough with the potential to reduce tensions between the two nations.
But there are many Taiwanese who fear that each step the governments in Taipei and Beijing take towards each other will increasingly jeopardise their democracy, freedom and independence.
The announcement of tomorrow’s planned meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou on neutral ground in Singapore promptly led to objections in Taipei.
“Depose Ma Ying-jeou!” and “No Ma-Xi meeting!” were the demands issued by Huang Kuo-chang, leader of the Sunflower Student Movement, whose protests against trade with the mainland reached a peak last year.
Low economic growth and stagnating wages are causing many among Taiwan’s population of 23mn to doubt whether the rapidly increasing co-operation between the two sides really has generated the promised benefits.
Mistrust within Taiwan’s democratic society of the powerful communist dictatorship on the mainland remains strong. There continue to be around 1,000 missiles aimed at the island from the mainland less than 200km away.
Many Taiwanese also mistrust their president, drawn from the Kuomintang Chinese Nationalist Party, accusing him of conducting “secret diplomacy” aimed at betraying Taiwan to the communists.
Ma’s popularity is at a low. Following two periods in office, he is not permitted to stand again, but his party is in deep crisis. Elections in January are predicted to bring the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to power.
While the DPP derives its power from the independence movement and backs greater Taiwanese self-reliance, the Kuomintang - like the Communist Party on the mainland - still backs reunification.
Many on the island no longer see themselves as Chinese, but rather as proud Taiwanese who have fought for and secured their own democratic system.
They reject the Hong Kong model of “one country, two systems” as they fear for their freedoms, based on experience in the former British colony since it was returned to China in 1997.
Ma Ying-jeou has long sought a formal meeting with Xi Jinping. Beijing’s change of heart in conceding this honour to him as head of a “renegade province” of China could be interpreted as part of a more flexible foreign policy.
It could also be seen as boosting the Kuomintang’s electoral prospects as a guarantor of stable relations.
“If the Kuomintang wins, the future is more secure, and if the DPP is victorious, it is rather insecure,” says Jia Qingguo, a professor at Peking University.
“If we can help the Kuomintang to win the election, this will be advantageous to mainland China,” he says.
Nevertheless, the support could backfire, if the Taiwanese electorate decides it does not wish to fall in line with Beijing’s wishes and votes instead for the DPP candidate, Tsai Ing-wen.