These are not easy achievements. They are also what the people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits have expected for quite some time. The mainland side surely will offer full cooperation and this is just a start, with more good results to be expected. Since both sides agree to put aside differences and join hands to create a win-win situation, there is still a lot to be done.

It's noteworthy that the DPP's secessionist activities seem like the massive earthquake, which has united people across the Taiwan Straits, the CPC and Kuomintang, and all Chinese around the world. Without their secessionist activities, the improvement of cross-straits relations might be more time-consuming.

Drawing up a Blueprint

By SUN SHENGLIANG

Under new circumstances of cross-straits relations, the focus of the summit between the CPC and the Kuomintang has shifted to "facing up to reality and creating a better future." Key issues included resuming talks between the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits and the Strait Exchange Foundation as soon as possible, realizing weekend passenger and cargo charter flights across the Taiwan Straits and allowing mainland tourists to visit Taiwan.

The meeting between Hu and Wu was the second top-level dialogue between the CPC and the Kuomintang in three years. This time, the two sides were more familiar with each other, and there was more a sense of responsibility on both sides. This difference is reflected through the changes in the layout of the conference room: Three years ago, the seats were put in a semi-circle, which showed a polite reception for guests; this time, delegates of the two parties sat face to face, looking more like a workshop.

Obviously, compared with former Kuomintang Chairman Lien Chan's "Journey of Peace" three years ago, the atmosphere accompanying Wu's visit has greatly changed. At that time, although the CPC and the Kuomintang transcended the hostility and hatred left by history and made a step forward toward reconciliation, the pro-independence DPP authority in Taiwan blocked progress and fueled up hostilities. The DPP authority also spared no efforts to push forward the "desinification" movement and sought "de jure independence" of the island. All these cast heavy clouds over relations across the Taiwan Straits.

Now, after Kuomintang's candidate Ma Ying-jeou won the "presidential" election in March and the failure of the two "referendums" on Taiwan's UN membership bid, cross-straits relations withstood the tests and are turning in a positive direction. Supports for closer cross-straits relations are also on the rise in Taiwan. All these present a historical opportunity for long-term peaceful and stable development of cross-straits relations.

If Lien's "Journey of Peace" is regarded as the first leg of a relay race, the second leg by Wu is equally and even more important. Despite the ongoing earthquake relief and rescue effort, the mainland decided to invite Wu as scheduled. This is proof of the mainland's great emphasis on cross-straits relations and its sincere wish to improve the relations as soon as possible. Taiwan residents are expecting to see an improvement in cross-straits relations and hope that direct flights across the straits and an influx of mainland tourists will help to boost the island's weakening economy, a legacy of the DPP's eight-year rule. The Kuomintang has a much heavier task on its shoulders than ever before.

Three years after its establishment, the exchange platform between the CPC and the Kuomintang has contributed much to the achievement of consensus on a series of major issues, especially those related to the well-being of people on the island, and to the transition of cross-straits relations from tension to stability. However, because of obstruction of the DPP that was in power before this May, many mutually beneficial measures failed to be put into practice. In this situation, the mainland was only able to do what it could do unilaterally, such as a series of policies beneficial to Taiwan and Taiwan people.

When they came to shake hands under the new circumstances, the two parties were able to go into detail on many issues. This will have a tangible impact on cross-straits relations. In this sense, the significance of the first CPC-Kuomintang summit after 1949 was to end hostilities from the past and the second to look forward into the future.

As the highest-level contact between the two parties, the Hu-Wu meeting placed emphasis on consolidating the foundation for bilateral exchanges and planning for future development of cross-straits relations.

Opposing "Taiwan independence" and insistence on the "1992 Consensus" on the one-China principle make up the political foundation for exchanges between the two parties and mutual trust across the Taiwan Straits. We have good reason to believe that, based on the well improved emotional and political foundation, not only a restart of direct dialogue across the straits is to come soon, but equal negotiation will bear more fruits, push forward mutual trust and create more favorable conditions for the solution of sensitive problems which the Taiwan residents are concerned about.