The Taiwan-China thaw

last updated 8 January 2015

“The Taiwan Strait continues to narrow,” said The Japan Times in an editorial. Last week, Taiwan hosted its highest-level meeting with mainland China since the two split in a 1949 civil war. Such bridge-building is great for “peace and stability in the region,” but it would have been “unthinkable” before March, when Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou defeated President Chen Shui-bian of the “independence-minded Democratic Progressive Party,” whom China shunned.

That’s nonsense, said Jerome Keating in the Taipei Times. Most of agreements China and Ma’s government signed last week were fashioned under Chen. Nothing historic happened except that “an arrogant, low-level Chinese official deigned to visit Taiwan”—and was met with huge, angry protests that the incompetent Ma should have foreseen and defused.