If Taiwanese investors were shaken by the heightened tension across the Taiwan Strait, they showed few visible signs of it at a mainland investment and trade fair in Xiamen.
The five-day event organised by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation is the biggest of its kind since cross-strait tensions rose in July, with 30,000 participants from 35 countries.
Taiwanese businessmen have outdone their Hong Kong counterparts by taking up much of the second floor at the Xiamen Blossom Exhibition City to show off their wares. Hong Kong's Trade Development Council, in contrast, has a modest booth on the first level.
Stephen Shen, president of Xiamen Dah Yang Telecom, a Taiwan-backed mainland electronic parts venture, said: 'We are naturally a bit nervous about the strained relations.
'But we are here to do business and will leave politics to the politicians.' 'Xiamen authorities have been supportive of us - no matter how the [political] ties are.' Mr Shen probably spoke for most Taiwanese businessmen, who, attracted by the cheap labour and cultural affinity with the mainlanders, have staked about US$30 billion in the country - mostly through Hong kong companies, as Taipei bans direct investment in the mainland.
Their factories, producing everything from handbags to computer parts, have helped to narrow the economic gap across the Taiwan Strait despite seemingly unbridgeable political differences.
Most Taiwanese have their ancestral roots in Fujian, so naturally they zoomed in on the province when they were allowed by Taipei to begin to invest indirectly in the mainland in the mid-1980s.
