China's Ties with Taiwan Thaw

Incoming Taiwanese Vice-President Siew and Chinese President Hu make history with a chat at the Boao Forum

by Dexter Roberts

Taiwan's vice president-elect Vincent Siew, (L) shakes hands with Chinese President Hu Jintao during the Boao Forum for Asia held in Boao on April 12, 2008. NG HAN GUAN/AFP/Getty Images

This year's Boao Forum for Asia, China's annual Davos-like meeting held on the tropical resort island of Hainan, featured plenty of pageantry. Under the swaying coconut trees, Chinese leaders over the weekend hosted the prime ministers of Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Australia and the presidents of Mongolia, Tanzania, Sweden, and Chile. Even the king of the Pacific island nation of Tonga was there and got the full diplomatic treatment of a military band and guard of honor in the nearby resort town of Sanya. Meanwhile, corporate chieftains from companies including Volvo, CNOOC (CEO), and Alibaba mingled over cocktails in elaborate evening banquets with Chinese opera performances.

But all of that was overshadowed by the presence of 67-year-old Vincent Siew, a Taiwanese politician who hasn't even assumed office yet. Siew, who becomes vice-president under Taiwanese President Ma Ying-Jeou on May 20, got less than half an hour of rushed talks on Apr. 12 with China's President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the Boao Forum. Still, with those 20 minutes Siew stole the show from the many other dignitaries, with crowds of journalists and diplomatic and corporate delegates mobbing him everywhere the career politician went.

That's because the meeting between Siew and Hu (and a follow-up session a day later with China's newly appointed Commerce Minister) was truly a diplomatic breakthrough. Indeed, it was the highest-level exchange between leaders from China and Taiwan in the almost 60 years since Siew's Kuomintang (KMT) predecessors fled to Taiwan in 1949. And the contact occurred even while the two sides technically remain at war, with Beijing pointing more than 1,000 missiles at Taipei and the rest of the island. The meeting "produced great, highly satisfactory results," said a smiling Siew before leaving Hainan for Taipei on Apr. 13. "It's a great success."

Much is at Stake Economically

Outsiders agree. The meeting "is very good news for the region," said former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who attended the Boao Forum and met Siew while there. "The two sides now have begun down a new path."

That the hastily arranged meeting even happened was almost by chance. In 2001, Siew founded an organization promoting China-Taiwan economic links called the Cross-Straits Common Market Foundation. As head of that foundation, he has regularly participated in the Hainan Forum and even met Hu on one previous visit. But those meetings took place while the KMT was the opposition party, with Taiwan led by President Chen Shui-bian of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party. This year's visit took on historic significance after the KMT swept presidential elections in March. That electoral change has raised hopes of a breakthrough in China-Taiwan relations following eight years of frostiness when Beijing and Taipei were not speaking to one another.

Economically there is much at stake. An estimated 1 million Taiwanese now live and work on the mainland. They have invested some $70 billion in factories making electronics, toys, and textiles and in real estate projects, ranging from hotels to villa compounds, in a broad coastal swath extending from Guangdong and Fujian provinces in the south to the greater Shanghai area and including cities like Kunshan, in Jiangsu province, dominated by Taiwanese business.