Taiwan's conservative president, Ma Ying-jeou, began his term with a burst of symbolic activity and bland rhetoric intended to move Taiwan, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, out of the cold war.
Minutes after being sworn into office, Mr Ma sped across town where an arena full of supporters waited for his inaugural address. Later in the day, he and his guests sped at 275km/h down to Kaohsiung in Taiwan's deep south for a banquet and fireworks to celebrate the inauguration of Taiwan's third democratically elected president.
While Mr Ma dazzled Taiwan with his speed, his rhetoric plodded. But this was intentional, and meant to persuade its true audience in Beijing. Unlike his predecessors, Mr Ma failed to affirm Taiwan's sovereignty explicitly. Nor did he reaffirm his striking commitment, late in his campaign, to the principle that Taiwan's future must be decided by its 23 million people.
Instead, Mr Ma argued that Taiwan and mainland China's differences are not over issues of sovereignty but, rather, core values and way of life. For Mr Ma, Taiwan's core values are the Confucian values of benevolence, righteousness, diligence, honesty, generosity and industriousness. Its way of life is what Mr Ma earnestly hopes the mainland will soon achieve: freedom, democracy and prosperity.
In other words, Taiwan and the mainland share a common Chinese heritage and one day may share a common political future.
As intended, Beijing found these sentiments comforting, and replied a few days later by echoing Mr Ma's appeal to the common interests of the Chinese people.