Hu and KMT chief pledge to improve ties
Both sides say they will make use of the 'new situation'
Long-soured cross-strait relations got off on an amiable foot at a landmark meeting in Beijing yesterday, with leaders of Taiwan's Kuomintang and the mainland's Communist Party pledging to push forward the peaceful development of bilateral ties.
But pundits yesterday doubted whether the historic opportunity for cross-strait rapprochement created after the mainland-friendly KMT returned to power on the island could really help the two sides ditch their political differences - over sovereignty in particular.
During the meeting, KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung and his Communist Party counterpart, Hu Jintao , vowed to make use of the 'new situation' to improve ties.
Mr Wu is the first serving KMT chairman to visit the mainland and talk to its top leader. His party regained power after Ma Ying-jeou beat his opponent Frank Hsieh Chang-ting, of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, in a landslide during the March 22 presidential election.
The win provided a good opportunity for the two sides of the strait to come to terms after relations had soured over the past eight years.
Mr Wu yesterday acknowledged that he carried a message from Mr Ma to Mr Hu, but declined to reveal the details. Taiwanese news media, however, quoting an unnamed presidential official, said Mr Ma had called for the shelving of differences between the two sides to resume talks suspended since 1999 and to pave the way for rapprochement and peace.
In visiting the 'Bird's Nest', the main Olympic venue, earlier yesterday, Mr Wu said there was a need for the two sides to exercise self- restraint.
Pundits said that while the two sides were expected to have a friendly engagement in the short term, it was inevitable that eventually they would touch on thorny political issues, including diplomatic and sovereign disputes.
'Whether there will be any conflict between the two sides over diplomatic issues, and whether they can compromise on these issues, is something worth watching,' said Tung Chen-yuan, professor of the Graduate Institute of Development Studies at National Chengchi University.
Mr Ma is tipped to visit Latin America this year and it remained to be seen whether Beijing would protest against his transit stay in the US, as it did with his predecessor Chen Shui-bian, Dr Tung said.
He said another point of interest was to what extent Beijing would consolidate its goodwill gesture towards Taiwan; that is, whether the government-funded Straits Exchange Foundation and its mainland counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (Arats), were able to resume talks soon, whether the foundation was able to reach an agreement with Arats on weekend charter flights and holiday visits by mainland tourists in line with the July 4 deadline set by the Ma government.
'More important, will the two sides be able to talk on political issues through the foundation and Arats?'
