It could be one of the most important speeches in Chinese history. What Chen Shui-bian says when he delivers his inauguration address as Taiwan's incoming president this morning could determine whether it is peace or war with communist China.
Since his election in March Beijing has been trying to write the speech for Mr Chen, warning that if he fails to embrace in his text the "one China" principle, then - as China's Communist Party newspaper, the People's Daily, said yesterday - crisis and conflict will follow.
The new Taiwan president leads the Democratic Progressive Party, which is dedicated to independence, but he has been doing verbal cartwheels to mollify Beijing without specifically embracing one China - which would cause uproar in the DPP ranks.
The Chinese people are "one family" he said last week. He would accept the one-China policy on an agenda for future talks between the two sides, but not as a precondition.
Mr Chen assured businessmen last week that it was still possible to "find another village behind the willows and flowers", a Chinese proverb meaning to find hope when all seems lost. If he really wanted to find such a "village behind the willows" Mr Chen should acknowledge that Taiwan was part of China, snorted the official China Daily in Beijing yesterday.
"The `two states' theory will not bring peace across the strait, instead it will stir up conflict, create a crisis and break the peace," said the newspaper, which enunciates government policy. Beijing has said acceptance of the one China principle would bring reunification talks, with both sides entering as equals.
The inauguration ceremony in Taipei marks the first democratic transfer of power in Taiwan, and brings to office the island's youngest ever president. Mr Chen (50), takes over from President Lee Teng-hui (77). He is also the first Taiwan leader not to belong to the Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, whose leaders fled to Taiwan in 1949 as a communist government took control of the mainland.
"We hope the new Taiwan leader has a clear understanding of the situation and will not do things that will hurt the fundamental interests of people across the Taiwan Strait and destroy the stability of the Taiwan Strait and the Asia-Pacific region," the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Ms Zhang Qiyue, told reporters on Thursday. The Chinese army newspaper, Liberation Daily, was less diplomatic. "Taiwan Independence Means War", read a banner headline over a photograph of helmeted soldiers rushing into position behind artillery. The 400,000-strong armed forces on Taiwan will be on a state of heightened alertness until Monday, but a military spokesman in Taipei emphasised that this was standard procedure for state occasions and they were not on battle alert.
Ever eager for any signs of recognition from the world of its status as a state separate from the People's Republic of China, Taiwan rolled out the red carpet yesterday for foreign dignitaries arriving for the inauguration. But no one of any global consequence has come to the celebration. Less than 30 nations maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Beijing having won the battle for recognition long ago - last year snatching the big prize of South Africa from Taipei - and Taiwan has to make do today with Poland's former president Lech Walesa, Swaziland's King Mswati III and Gambia's Vice-President Isatou Njie Saidy. Despite being Taiwan's arms supplier and main trading partner, Washington has sent only Laura D'Andrea Tyson, a former head of the US National Economic Council, and some junior officials to witness the event. We "recognise that the transfer of power that will occur tomorrow - the first in Chinese history as the result of an election - is a most significant event," she said.
Among the guests at the ceremony will be Wang Dan, a student leader at the time of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown now living in exile in the US.
However, Mr Chen's rival in the presidential election, Lien Chan of the Nationalist Party, and James Soong of the People First Party, have turned down invitations to the inauguration and travelled abroad instead, a signal that he will get little co-operation from the opposition in the coming, fraught months. Today, Mr Chen's deputy, Annette Lu, will become Taiwan's first woman vice- president. While Beijing has avoided personal attacks on Mr Chen, waiting to see how he will bend in his speech today, they have poured invective upon Ms Lu, who is a more outspoken advocate of Taiwan independence. She has been called the "scum of the nation", a "traitor" and a "hideous" diehard in the official Chinese media.
The 56-year-old lawyer infuriated Beijing in March when she told Hong Kong television that China and Taiwan were "close neighbours" but "remote relatives". Mr Chen has come up with a more embracing turn of phrase - the "one-family" principle.
But it is well-nigh impossible for him to make the great leap which communist China wants him to make, and accept one China, certainly not under communist suzerainty. The fascination of today's event is in seeing just what form of words he comes up with to enable the more moderate Beijing leaders to restrain its dogs of war in the People's Liberation Army.