Taiwan's relative economic and cultural power has declined significantly due to the PRC's growth. The ROC acted as an ideological counterweight to the PRC for many years but now the Taiwanese are too busy arguing with each other whether to even retain the "Chinese" identity. It's like some of them bought into the "CCP = the only China" idea as well.

The ROC persisted under the premise that they were the temporarily dispossessed but still legitimate government of all of China. They're not, and they haven't been for decades, but they can't take the next logical step of reconstituting a Republic of Taiwan because PRC has threatened war in that scenario. America has a legal obligation to defend Taiwan, but PRC has threatened to use nuclear weapons to respond to any US intervention--"In the end you care more about Los Angeles than you do about Taipei".

There's a clear long-term goal of destabilizing ROC and encouraging unification from the PRC side.

It’s tragic because culturally I’ve heard Taiwan is more similar to China of old: KMT refugees fled to Taiwan from nearly every part of China, bringing their food and culture with them. And there was no cultural revolution in Taiwan, so they retain more of the politeness and traditions.