The ritualistic backtracking by Taiwan: play it again, Chen
■"In an Overture, Taiwan's President Calls for Opening Peace Talks With Mainland China: Chen Shui-bian seeks actions to cut tension and military threats," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 11 October 2004, p. A5.
Taiwan's president uses the excuse of Hu Jintao's consolidation of power in Beijing last month to make the standard let's-be-friends pitch that periodically interrupts the usual idiotic name-calling and threats between China and Taiwan. Of course, throughout all these political ups and downs, economic integration proceeds apace, creating its own reality below the superstructure of all this rhetoric.
Funny thing is how everyone calls it "peace talks" when there isn't a state of war between the two sides (unless you really reach for some historical argument about a lack of a treaty to end the civil war), but such is the state of hyperbole.
Still, a good sign that Taiwan welcomes Hu's consolidation of power under the assumption that now he has a freer hand to be more nuanced about Taiwan than Jiang Jemin had been in the past.