Cross-strait relations nearing 'deep water zone'

The frosty wind that blew across the Taiwan Strait for decades has warmed considerably in recent years as both Beijing and Taipei focused on areas of agreement rather than dispute.

Since then-Kuomintang leader Lien Chan's landmark meeting with President Hu Jintao in 2005, the two governments have signed numerous co-operation pacts allowing more people and capital to flow across the strait even as they remain military foes.

But such deals have just scratched the surface of any potential reconciliation. And, as Vice-President Xi Jinping prepares to take the helm in Beijing, Taiwanese experts agree cross-strait talks are nearing a "deep water zone" where more vexing problems will become increasingly unavoidable.

"With the two sides signing 18 co-operation agreements on economic and other non-political issues, they will have to face the thornier political issues," said Wang Kung-yi, a professor at the Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University in Taipei.

As they wade into deeper waters, the two sides will have to begin confronting political and ideological rifts that fuelled the Chinese civil war and led Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang to flee to Taiwan 62 years ago.

On one side sits Taiwan, a developed capitalist democracy with a population of 23 million. On the other is the mainland, a rapidly developing country of 1.3 billion that has nonetheless shown few signs of abandoning Communist Party rule.