CHINA: This week's Beijing visit by a senior Taiwanese politician marks a breakthrough, writes Clifford Coonan.
The last time China's Communist Party and its bitter rivals, the Kuomintang, came this close, they were exchanging bullets in a bloody civil war that saw the losing nationalists flee to Taiwan and Mao Zedong's army raise the red flag in Beijing.
So it is a remarkable sight to see KMT leader Lien Chan and Chinese president Hu Jintao shaking hands, sharing a stage in the Great Hall of the People, grinning broadly and posing for a group photo, and all the time hinting at a formal end to the civil war.
The visit by Mr Lien has been controversial in Taiwan because these days the KMT is the opposition party in Taiwan, voted out of power by the pro-independence party of Chen Shui-bian.
It caused quite a stir in Beijing, where roads were sealed off from early on, and many older people could not help but shake their heads at the idea of the KMT being back in town.
However, the KMT is much more popular in Beijing than Taiwanese president Chen's Democratic People's Party (DPP), which espouses dangerous independence notions, as far as the Communist Party is concerned.
Better the devil you know, as the saying goes.
They may be old enemies but the nationalists favour a more conciliatory approach to Beijing.
Some protesters on Taiwan have called Mr Lien a traitor, betraying the island, but increasingly President Chen is looking isolated by his rival's initiative in travelling to the lion's den, and many people on Taiwan are less hostile to the idea of the KMT heading to Beijing than might have been expected.
Of course, the Communists have been happy to make political capital out of Mr Lien's visit. They consider Taiwan a renegade province and despise what they see as President Chen's separatist ambitions.
Pitting the independence-minded president against the KMT leader is very much in the "divide and conquer" mould of political manoeuvring, which has worked very well for the communists before.
Mr Lien is trying to mend fences after China passed a law authorising war if self-ruled Taiwan formally declared statehood.
The anti-secession law has ratcheted up tensions across the Strait. China is said to have 706 missiles pointed at Taiwan, while the United States has vowed to intercede to protect Taiwan if Beijing should ever invade.
The law is seen as a potent threat by Beijing to stop President Chen, who defeated Mr Lien in elections in 2000 and 2004, trying to declare the island an independent state before his second, and final, term ends in 2008.
President Chen's party said it was disappointed that Mr Lien "went to an enemy country and did not express the majority view of Taiwan people, which is that Taiwan is a sovereign independent country", a spokesman said.
"He did not stress this, and instead stressed the idea of a greater China. Where did he put the feelings of Taiwan people?"
The nationalists ruled China from the end of the Qing dynasty in 1911. They joined forces with the Communists to fight the Japanese but soon after the end of the war, civil war erupted and Chiang Kai-shek's armies lost to those of the wily Chairman Mao Zedong. No armistice or peace agreement was ever signed.
However, Mr Lien did not kowtow completely.
He called on the mainland government to embrace political reform.
But he also said that no one should upset the status quo which has kept the peace between them for decades, a message guaranteed to anger President Chen's ruling DPP, which advocates independence for democratic Taiwan, still officially styled "Republic of China".
"The speed and scale of political reform on the mainland still have considerable room for improvement," he told students at Beijing University in a speech which was shown on live television all around China.
President Chen at first warned Mr Lien against signing any agreements with Beijing, but later gave his blessings to the trip.
Mr Lien's trip, seen as aa attempt by China to isolate the DPP, has come under fire at home from protesters accusing Mr Lien of betrayal.
Divisions run deep in Taiwanese politics. Mr Chen believes the KMT was involved in a 1985 incident in which his wife, Wu Shu-chen, was run over three times by a truck, leaving her paralysed from the waist down.
The truck-driver and party insisted it was an accident, and the driver wasn't charged.
Mr Lien received a standing ovation on arriving at the university, alma mater to his 96-year-old mother.
His visit also includes trips to Xian, where his family come from; Nanjing, where the KMT supreme Sun Yat-sen is buried; and Shanghai, to meet Taiwanese business leaders.
The Taiwanese contingent also presented boxes of mangoes, pineapples, bananas and papayas during the afternoon, aimed at symbolising the KMT's bid to win tax-free status for Taiwanese fruit.
For its part, China is planning to send a pair of pandas to Taiwan to mark the visit.