Taiwan edges closer to China with one nation talk

CHINA: China and Taiwan edged closer to a resumption of fence-mending talks on Tuesday when the chairman of the island's ruling party echoed the Chinese line that both sides are part of a single nation.

China, which has claimed Taiwan as its own since their split in 1949 amid civil war, has softened its policy towards the self-ruled island from pushing for unification with the threat of force to one of preventing a declaration of independence.

"Both sides are tied by blood to the Chinese nation and this cannot be obliterated by anyone," Taiwan's Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung said in Nanjing, the capital when the KMT ruled all of China. Taiwan's new president, Ma Ying-jeou, also made the pledge - a move Beijing considers a political necessity for talks frozen since 1999 to resume - in his May 20 inauguration speech.

When the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ruled Taiwan, Beijing redefined its cherished "one China" policy to mean "both the mainland and Taiwan" instead of merely "the People's Republic of China" to try to accommodate the island.

The movement of cross-Straits relations appears glacial and opaque to most outsiders, but the "one China" policy - although defined differently by each side - is the pillar of stability in one of Asia's most dangerous flashpoints. China spurned the DPP, which was routed in the March presidential elections by the KMT. The Nationalists oppose independence but are in no hurry to get into bed with China politically.

After eight years of troubled ties between China and a DPP-ruled Taiwan, talks are set to resume under the KMT.

Wu is due to meet Chinese Communist Party chief Hu Jintao in Beijing on Wednesday - the first meeting between heads of the ruling parties of China and Taiwan in six decades.

"We should all seize this new opportunity in cross-Strait relations, face up to history, face reality and look into the future," Wu said. "There are many difficulties, but so long as both sides are sincere, peaceful development will definitely have brighter prospects." Beijing, Tuesday, Reuters