In Two Long-Frozen Asian Disputes, Everyone Agrees To Talk
South Korea announced Tuesday it will hold its first high-level meeting in years with rival North Korea. If that development offered a glimmer of hope, another move was positively historic: Senior officials from China and Taiwan met Tuesday for the first time since the two rivals split more than six decades ago.
It's far too early to tell if all this talking will lead anywhere, but it's certainly unusual. Let's begin with China and Taiwan.
Tuesday's meeting between Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Minister Wang Yu-chi and China's Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun would have been unthinkable in years past, but the talks' location, the city of Nanjing, is steeped in symbolism.
Nanjing was the seat of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government during the civil war with Mao Zedong's Communists. The Nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1949. The city is also home to the tomb of Sun Yat-Sen, the founder of modern China, who is revered by both sides.
"Our meeting had been something unimaginable before," Zhang said, "but if we really want to achieve breakthroughs we must apply a bit of creativity."
Wang echoed those comments.
"Being able to sit down and talk is a really valuable opportunity, considering that the two sides were once almost at war," he said.
The Associated Press has more on what the two sides discussed:
"Zhang said talks touched on Beijing's desire to see Taiwan ratify a trade services agreement that would allow the sides to open a wide range of businesses in each other's territory. Beijing approved the accord more than six months ago but it remains stuck in Taiwan's legislature, a reflection of the public's fear of being overwhelmed by their giant neighbor.
"Zhang said they also discussed exchanging permanent representative offices, but that multiple technical questions remain to be overcome."