Get ready for some real diplomacy
Kuomintang chairman Lien Chan's mainland trip may have had enormous symbolism for international observers, but for most Taiwanese, James Soong Chu-yu's trip over the next eight days will be a far more poignant affair. This is the same man who put Chen Shui-bian in jail as a dissident; now he is carrying the Taiwanese president's message to President Hu Jintao . Whatever he comes back with might alter cross-strait relations, but it will certainly reconfigure the domestic political landscape.
Mr Soong, chairman of the People First Party (PFP), is a master of politics who learned his craft from two of Taiwan's (perhaps Asia's) greatest teachers - the late former Taiwanese president, Chiang Ching-kuo, and his successor, Lee Teng-hui. Indeed, it could be argued that had Mr Soong been any less obvious a natural successor to Mr Lee, he would be in the presidential office now, and Mr Lien's visit would never have happened because the KMT would still be in power. The only mistake of his career was to prove to Mr Lee - too well - that he could become the democratic, populist face for a reinvigorated KMT when he easily won Taiwan's first real election for provincial governor in 1994. He was too much of a threat, and so Mr Lee marginalised him, leading to his splitting the KMT ticket in the 2000 presidential election.
Mr Soong is busily reinventing himself. He and Mr Chen recently shocked supporters in both their parties - the PFP and the Democratic Progressive Party, respectively - by reaching a '10-point consensus' on Taiwan's sovereignty. They are not natural bedfellows. Mr Soong was the face of the establishment as government propaganda chief in the late-1970s (when Mr Chen was prosecuted for libel), and then the master of the KMT's grass-roots political money machine in the early 1990s. He came within a whisker of beating Mr Chen in the 2000 election, and arguably gave Mr Lien the best possible chance of winning by running on his ticket in last year's election. He has far more reason to feel bitter about the circumstances of that final defeat.
But rather than tilting at windmills, as Mr Lien has been doing since December's election kept their pan-blue alliance in command of the legislature, Mr Soong has been thinking about how to remain a relevant force in Taiwanese politics.
He has looked at the KMT, which is soon going to be torn apart by the rivalry between Legislative Speaker Wang Jyn-ping and Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou when they contest Mr Lien's chairmanship. He has looked at his own party, which is riven by similar factionalism between pragmatic grass-roots influence-peddlers and reunification ideologues. And he has taken the pulse of public opinion. This is what I guess he has seen: the pro-reunification right and the pro-independence left are withering. The middle ground wants to see better commercial and economic ties with the mainland, without sacrificing Taiwan's sovereignty.
Mr Chen has seen this, too. The biggest gift the mainland has offered through Mr Lien is to open its markets wider to produce from Taiwanese farmers. But it will never be accepted by the pro-independence rural south if there are strings attached to the 'one-China' principle. If Mr Chen can get the same offer in a better package, such as recognising the 'notion of the 1992 consensus' - that is, agree to disagree and then put it aside - then Mr Lien's 'breakthrough' will very quickly be forgotten.
There is only one man who can negotiate this right now. It is someone who is not afraid of losing support at home by taking a friendly but firm stance with Mr Hu. Neither is it someone who has come to the end of his political career. The stage is Mr Soong's; he can be trusted to make the most of it.
Anthony Lawrance is the Post's special projects editor
