My Take'Secret' meeting between Democratic Party members and Beijing official a step on the right path

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war, says Winston Churchill.

So, after backing each other into a corner with no room to compromise over Hong Kong's failed electoral reform, the more reasonable people on both sides are starting to mend fences.

A credible attempt was made this week, and further dialogue should be encouraged. It was disclosed yesterday that several Democratic Party members led by party chairwoman and lawmaker Emily Lau Wai-hing met Feng Wei, a deputy director of the State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office at the latter's invitation this week.

Conspiracy theorists and some paranoid pan-democrats are already saying it was nothing more than an attempt by Beijing to drive a wedge within their camp. The radicals predictably denounced the meeting as "secret" talks behind their backs.

Well, if all political meetings on sensitive topics have to be conducted in the open, nothing will ever get done. The radicals' demand for "open doors" and transparency is just an excuse not to talk and negotiate.

Nothing concrete, of course, emerged from the meeting. But it could be a start for more meaningful dialogue in future. The point is not to follow the pan-democratic rejectionists like Audrey Eu Yuet-mee and Alan Leong Kah-kit, who have nothing to offer but pointless supercilious derisions against the governments in Hong Kong and Beijing.