Taiwan vice president-elect Vincent Siew met briefly with Chinese President Hu Jintao today, a historic moment in strained China-Taiwan relations, with both saying they wanted closer economic ties.
China, which has about 170 allies including the world's most powerful nations, has claimed self-ruled Taiwan as its territory since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 and pledged to bring the island under its rule, by force if necessary.
Political differences have effectively barred high-level contact between the two sides for the past six decades.
"The visit signals in concrete terms a beginning of detente across the Strait," said Lin Chong-pin, a former Taiwan government official and president of the Taipei-based Foundation on International and Cross-strait Studies. "So far that (detente) has only been atmospheric."
Siew and Hu talked one-on-one, mostly in private, for 20 minutes with 12 delegates each at the April 11-13 Boao Forum for Asia, which takes place every year in Hainan province of southern China. They sat side by side after shaking hands.
"Economic development is the mutual expectation of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait," Siew told Hu, calling himself an "old soldier" of economic policy.
"I'd like to exchange ideas with Mr. Siew on the issue of economic cooperation across the Taiwan Strait," Hu said in televised remarks.
Siew, who was premier in the 1990s, also said he wanted an early launch of weekend chartered flights between the two sides, which now bar direct routes for security reasons, and an increase in Chinese tourists in Taiwan, Taiwan television reported.
The two sides have not met formally since the 1990s. They avoided politics in the live broadcast portions of their meeting.