On February 28, it unveiled a package of 31 "incentives" to attract Taiwanese people and businesses to the mainland, offering tax breaks and subsidies for high-tech companies, research grants for academics, and a promise to allow Taiwanese companies to bid for government infrastructure projects and even become involved in China's "Belt and Road" global development plan.
China called the measures an expression of its belief that there is "one family" on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Taiwanese Vice-Premier Shih Jun Ji cast it as an effort to undermine the island's economy.
"China's attempt to attract Taiwan's capital and talent, especially high tech and young students, has clear political intentions," he said at a news conference, unveiling eight countermeasures designed to keep people at home.
In 2012, Oxford Economics judged that Taiwan faced the largest "talent deficit" among 46 countries surveyed, and the research firm recently said the conclusion stands today.
In Taipei, some politicians are becoming worried.
"This is very clearly targeted at luring our talent to China," said Jason Hsu, a lawmaker for the opposition Kuomintang party. "I see a huge exodus."
Tensions rose across the Taiwan Strait after the 2016 election of Tsai Ing Wen as president: Her DPP views Taiwan as a de facto independent nation, and although she has ruled out a declaration of independence, she has declined to endorse the idea of "one China."
In response, China has taken diplomatic and military steps to isolate and intimidate Taiwan, but that has not been winning many hearts and minds here, so Beijing took a different tack, one it employs all over the world: using its economic might to try to buy friends.
China's economy dwarfs Taiwan's, and its growth rate, at nearly 7 per cent last year, outstrips Taiwan's, which was 2.8 per cent last year.
Although Taiwan's per capita income is much higher - more than US$24,000 compared with less than US$9000 on the mainland - in certain sectors, mainland salaries can be twice, three or even five times higher than in Taiwan, according to people who have worked in both places.
Official figures show 720,000 of Taiwan's 11-million strong workforce have left the island for work, with more half of them going to China. But experts say the real figure is much higher.
A poll conducted in March found that nearly 9 in 10 Taiwanese workers have worked abroad or are willing to do so.
"You have to consider your future, your job opportunities, what you want to achieve," said 30-year-old Nelson Kuo, who moved to Shanghai five years ago to work as a customer experience consultant for leading brands. "From that point of view, China is a really great place to live."
It does take some adjustment, he acknowledged.
In Taiwan, people are more sensitive to others' feelings, he said, but "Chinese people tell you things very directly. In the beginning, that made me feel uncomfortable, but I got used to it."
Chinese colleagues often resent the Taiwanese, Liu said, thinking them to be better paid.
At National Taiwan University, some students said they wanted to contribute to Taiwan's development and would never work in China. Others aimed at careers in the United States, but many said their ambitions lay on the mainland: culturally and linguistically more accessible than the West, and more achievable.
So what are China's goals in luring Taiwan's people to the mainland? Ultimately, the unification of Taiwan and China into that one "happy family" under Communist Party rule.
Attracting Taiwanese entrepreneurs and workers to the mainland could make them more comfortable with one day being part of China, less likely to risk their livelihoods by ever supporting independence.
The flow of talent creates another lever that Beijing can use against Taipei, and if it succeeds in hollowing out Taiwan's economy, it could perhaps fuel a sense of resignation among Taiwanese people, a feeling that there is no alternative to one day accepting Chinese sovereignty.
"We can't scare you, we can't bully you to be our friend, so we'll keep offering you candies until you are hooked," Hsu said, describing his perception of China's tactics.
But it is not clear that the strategy will pay off for China.
Some evidence from pollsters suggests that young people feel slightly less negative toward China than older people do.
But the longer-term trends are clear: a growing sense of a separate Taiwanese identity and a steep decline in the number of those who feel Chinese, says Academia Sinica political scientist Nathan Batto.
"China is a place for work," Kuo said. "I like this country, but culturally I still belong to Taiwan. There is still a gap."
Taiwan, as a progressive and vibrant democracy, feels a world away from the increasingly authoritarian regime of President Xi Jinping, where foreign social-media platforms are blocked and free speech is sharply curtailed.
"Taiwanese people have been going to China for the past 20 years, but when they go they feel like they are in a different world," said DPP lawmaker Jason Lin Chun Hsien. "They also know who is threatening our survival, who is suppressing our space in international society. It's a problem of humiliation."
Indeed, weeks after unveiling the "incentives," China's aircraft carrier was cruising through the Taiwan Strait, and Chinese warplanes flew menacingly close to the island.
"China seems to be unable just to be nice to Taiwan," said Michael Cole, a Taipei-based scholar. "It always has to do something stupid."
