China+and+Taiwan

**China and Taiwan**

**Ever cuddlier**  Dec 18th 2008 | BEIJING From The Economist print edition

**Man and mail can now travel directly between Taiwan and China** WHEN China offered 30 years ago to set up transport links with Taiwan, the island’s government said no. But as China’s economy grew, Taiwan wavered. On December 15th ships, aircraft and mail at last began routine daily crossings directly across the Taiwan Strait. A jubilant Chinese official declared it “the final part of our economic circle with Taiwan.” Taiwan’s president, Ma Ying-jeou, was no less upbeat. Since he was sworn in this May, Mr Ma has moved swiftly to mend fences. In July the two sides established weekend charter flights, albeit time-consumingly routed through Hong Kong’s air space. Now weekday services have been added and the Hong Kong detour has been abandoned. Direct cargo flights have also been launched (60 a month initially). And mail is no longer exchanged circuitously, usually via Hong Kong. For many of the hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese businesspeople and their relatives living and working in China, these services will be a boon. Changing planes in Hong Kong, as many weekday travellers previously had to, often meant the better part of a working day was used up on the journey. Mr Ma hopes the easier connections with China will help Taiwan’s recession-hit economy. The main opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), remains sceptical, saying the links threaten the island’s security. But the DPP is still reeling from its losses in this year’s parliamentary and presidential elections. And on December 12th its former leader, Chen Shui-bian (who was Taiwan’s president from 2000 until Mr Ma took over), was charged in connection with corruption scandals affecting himself and his family.

In spite of the complexities of cross-strait transport, China has emerged in recent years as Taiwan’s largest trading partner and Taiwan as one of China’s biggest investors. But—to Mr Ma’s disquiet—barriers remain, not least to Chinese investment in Taiwan and Taiwanese financial services in China. These issues will be discussed in Shanghai on December 20th and 21st at a cross-strait economic forum attended by the chairman of Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang party, Wu Poh-hsiung. Mr Wu will be the first of his rank to attend such a meeting. The recent improvement of cross-strait ties will become all the more evident later in the month when two pandas are due to be flown (directly) from China to Taiwan as a goodwill gift. China offered the pandas in 2005 but Mr Chen spurned them (their names, Tuantuan and Yuanyuan, playing on a Chinese word for reunion, did not help endear them). Mr Ma prefers a cuddlier approach to the mainland.