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Taiwan and China prepare for historic meeting
Taiwan's vice president-elect, Vincent Siew, is scheduled to sit down with Chinese President Hu Jintao for a low-key but historic meeting on the sidelines of a business conference on Saturday.
- AP
- Published: 13:18 April 12, 2008
Shanghai: Taiwan's vice president-elect, Vincent Siew, is scheduled to sit down with Chinese President Hu Jintao for a low-key but historic meeting on the sidelines of a business conference on Saturday.
For the past eight years, Taiwan's leadership has repeatedly invited China's president to meet to discuss tensions that make the Taiwan Strait one of the world's most potentially dangerous hot spots, but the peace talks never came close to happening.
However, Saturday's gathering on China's Hainan island would make Siew, who takes office next Month, the highest-ranking elected figure on Taiwan to meet with a Chinese leader.
It's a huge diplomatic coup for Siew and President-elect Ma Ying-jeou. Although they won last month's election by promising smoother relations with China, few expected the incoming leadership to get an audience with a Chinese president so soon.
Siew's meeting could also mark the beginning of a major thawing in frosty China-Taiwan relations. The tensions date back to 1949, when the Communists took over China and Taiwan refused to be ruled by the new government, led by Mao Zedong.
China has repeatedly threatened to attack Taiwan if the island of 23 million people refuses to unify eventually. Washington has warned Beijing that US forces might defend the island, one of Asia's most vibrant democracies.
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