The
handshake went on for a few minutes, with both men smiling broadly and
turning side to side so the hundreds of reporters in the meeting room at
the Shangri-La Hotel in the city-state of Singapore
could document the moment. The meeting is a high point in the two
leaders’ efforts to bridge the divisions of civil war and decades of
animosity.
When
the two men sat down to start their talks, Mr. Xi spoke first and said
their encounter was a historic step that opened a new chapter in
relations between the two sides. Mr. Xi said that the people of China
and Taiwan were compatriots, “one family with blood that is thicker than
water.”
It
was the first meeting of the leader of the Republic of China, more
commonly called Taiwan, and the leader of the People’s Republic of
China. The two governments have been rivals since 1949, when Chiang
Kai-shek, the leader of the Chinese Nationalists, fled to Taiwan after
losing a civil war to Mao’s Communists, who established the People’s
Republic of China that year. Those two leaders last met in 1945.
Mr.
Xi’s comments on Saturday were threaded with words and remarks
underscoring his view that the meeting did not mark any weakening of
China’s claim that Taiwan belongs to it as part of one country. “We
should use our actions to demonstrate to the world that Chinese people
on both sides of the strait fully have the ability and wisdom to solve
their own problems,” he said.
The
100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait that divides the two was a flash point at
times throughout the past six decades, with heavy artillery bombardments
of islands off the Chinese mainland in the 1950s and Chinese missile
launchings ahead of Taiwan’s 1996 presidential elections.
For
Mr. Xi, who has riled neighbors including Vietnam, which he visited en
route to Singapore, with China’s aggressive defense of territorial
claims and the construction of islands in the South China Sea, the
meeting offers a chance to portray himself as a peacemaker, able to
overcome longstanding differences.
Mr.
Ma pushed for closer ties with China during his seven and a half years
in office, during which the two sides signed more than 20 agreements.
Bilateral trade, direct flights and visitors to Taiwan from China all
climbed significantly. He long wanted a meeting with Mr. Xi, and said
that the encounter, which was only announced late Tuesday, was the product of two years of negotiations between the two sides.
But
Saturday’s meeting might not soon be repeated. Mr. Ma’s second and
final term as president ends next year. Voters of the democratic,
self-ruled island have grown increasingly wary of China’s embrace, and last year student-led protesters occupied Taiwan’s legislature for nearly a month to thwart a trade in services bill with China in what became known as the Sunflower Movement.
Mr. Ma’s party faces the likely prospect of losing the presidency and possibly control of the legislature. The candidate most likely to replace him, Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party, favors a more restrained approach to China.
The
online edition of The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of China’s ruling
Communist Party, carried a commentary Saturday criticizing naysayers who
have called the Singapore meeting an empty ritual.
“Some
suspect that the ‘Xi-Ma meeting’ is empty formality because no
agreements will be signed and there’ll be no statement about what was
discussed,” it said. “The ‘Xi-Ma meeting’ implies not only that mutual
political confidence between the two sides of the strait has made a
stride upwards, it also shows that cross-strait relations have risen to a
new phase.”
The meeting was the subject of awkward and sometimes strained protocol.
China wanted to avoid any appearance that it was acknowledging Taiwan’s
sovereignty. And Taiwan likewise wanted to avoid any appearance that it
was subordinate to China.
The
two men were referred to as the “leader of the mainland side” and the
“leader of the Taiwan side.” They referred to each other as “xiansheng”
in Chinese, or “mister,” to avoid the implications that would come with
the title of president.
And
there were no flags or outward symbols of state. Mr. Ma said during a
news conference this week in Taipei that he would not wear a pin with
Taiwan’s flag on Saturday because it would be awkward. When the news
conference was shown on Chinese state television, the flag pin he was then wearing was obscured.
While
efforts that are seen as lessening tensions across the Taiwan Strait
are generally supported in Taiwan, there were also concerns that the
meeting might result in a change in the terms of the delicate
relationship between the two sides.
“They
aren’t meeting as presidents, they are meeting as leaders of the two
sides,” said Lin Fei-fan, one of the leaders of the Sunflower Movement.
“This pattern for talks could affect our ability to interact with other
countries in the future.”
The
encounter could also pose a risk for Mr. Xi that despite all the
careful protocol, meeting Mr. Ma in Singapore could elevate the status
of Taiwan and unravel China’s decades of efforts at isolating the island
internationally.
But
Mr. Xi also wants to show to Taiwan the potential benefits of
cooperating with the mainland. “I think Xi Jinping’s goal may be to sort
of weaken the faction in Taiwanese public opinion that says, ‘Let’s
poke a needle in the eye of Beijing,’ ” said Andrew J. Nathan, a
professor of political science at Columbia University who focuses on
China.
The
meeting shows “Xi is willing be a bit more innovative and creative and
find accommodation of some kind,” said Orville Schell, the director of
the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York.
“It
also strikes me as quite opportunistic,” he added, noting that Mr. Ma
is soon to leave office, and his replacement is likely to be less
accommodating.
Saturday’s meeting, Mr. Schell noted, advances the long, tangled history between the two sides, but it is far from resolved.
“These
two pieces of real estate have been in this state of suspended
animation, each at different times claiming to own the other,” he said.
“They are still doing this strange dance and are still trying to find a
more comfortable angle of repose.”
Source: Ny times
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