When Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou was elected ruling Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman in July, pundits jumped on the idea that he would use his new title to help secure a meeting with China’s President Hu Jintao. The first-of-a-kind summit would follow six decades of strained relations including China’s threats of military force against the island.
Ma’s new job, which he will take in mid-October, allows him to meet Communist Party Chairman Hu in a party-to-party role, laying aside each side’s presidential title. China does not recognise Taiwan’s presidency or other government institutions as it claims sovereignty over the self-ruled island.
Beijing’s state-run China Daily newspaper said such a meeting would signal “great reconciliation.”
A meeting would best take place in 2012, according to a KMT spokesman, Lee Chien-jung.
Before then, Ma will be wary of Taiwan’s divided public, Lee said. Taiwanese generally favour closer economic ties with China but oppose rushing into a relationship with the long-distrusted Communist government on fears that Beijing would compromise Taiwan’s self-rule, including its democracy. Ma will monitor opinion polls for any change in sentiment, the spokesman said, ruling out any meeting in the short term.
Ma could also be embarrased at home if Hu declined to acknowledge his title as president.
Odds of a meeting will surge in 2012 if Ma wins re-election by a big margin in March of that year, which would be an endorsement of China-friendly economic policies that have characterised his administration since he took office in May 2008.
“That interpretation wouldn’t be too far off the mark,” Lee said.
No doubt the KMT would also like to see political dividends from any momentum it can build ahead of the election for an expected summit that could occur if Ma were to win.
In an exclusive interview with Reuters on Monday, Ma said he would not exclude the possibility of meeting with China’s leaders one day, adding that there was no timetable for any such meeting. “At the moment, we have our hands full with economic issues,” he said.
Hu, expected to step down as president in 2013, might see 2012 as his last chance to meet Ma while in office — a historic moment that might qualify both sides for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Taiwan and China have tacitly agreed to lay aside issues of military tension, international space and sovereignty while they build up basic trust after 60 years of little or no official contact.
If the two sides break ice on these sensisitve political topics, in addition to the trade issues discussed to date, and can deliver any kind of tangible agreement beforehand, it would make sense for a summit 2012, said Raymond Wu, a political risk consultant in Taipei.
“If Ma’s political standing at home is solid and Hu is the undisputed centre of power, then yes, I think both would like to meet,” Wu said.
Photo: Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou speaks in an interview with Reuters at the Presidential Office in Taipei on Oct. 19, 2009. REUTERS/Nicky Loh
4:30 pm : China celebrated its wealth and rising might with a show of goose-stepping troops, floats and nuclear-capable missiles, 60 years after Mao Zedong proclaimed its embrace of communism.
The two hour-parade of picture-perfect soldiers, tanks and missiles, floats and 100,000 well-drilled civilians was a proud moment for many Chinese citizens, as reporters Ben Blanchard and Lucy Hornby write.
The weather was perfect too, with the Chinese air force deploying a “magic-like” range of chemicals and technology to clear Beijing’s smoggy air.
Here's another image from the grand parade:
2:40 pm : Here’s a video of the parade shot by photographer David Grey.
2:00 pm : On a street corner at the end of China’s 60th anniversary parade route a crowd of ordinary but excited Beijingers gathered to wave flags and snap pictures of the floats as they trundled off to a temporary parking lot, reporter Emma Graham-Harrison writes
They were lucky — stringent security meant probably only a
few thousand people, in a city of well over 10 million, got a
live glimpse of the government’s celebration of its own success.
The leadership’s apparent conviction that ordinary Chinese
people could not be trusted to join in the celebration led to a
strange atmosphere downtown, with empty, echoing streets
occasionally filled with the rumble of an airforce flyover.
By the time the parade reached areas that - although partly
sealed off — still held some ordinary citizens, the thousands of
dancing, marching escorts that accompanied each display through Tiananmen Square had already peeled off.
Those on the floats looked off duty; many had sat down or were chatting among themselves.
But the small crowd still waved, shouted and snapped at the lavish representations of everything from the Olympics to agricultural advancements as if they were at the heart of the celebrations.
The fervour of those who could get close stood in sharp relief to the cordons of armed and aggressive cops — and to the mistrust of a leadership that claims to serve the people but appears somewhat afraid of them.
But it also suggested that the biggest security danger in throwing open the parade might have been not the terrorism Beijing claimed to fear, but a simple excess of enthusiasm among an increasingly patriotic population.
1:30 p.m.: Security for China’s 60th anniversary parade was tight, with access to many areas blocked by multiple cordons, which meant that Reuters journalists had to sleep in the office to ensure that they would be able to cover the parade.
Reuters’ Graham-Harrison writes about her night in the office ahead of the parade :
For a moment on waking up I savoured the one unquestionable benefit of sleeping in the office — my commute was cut to about 30 seconds. I could be up at 7.59 and still at my desk by 8.00.
It became obvious a couple of weeks before Communist China’s 60th anniversary parade that covering it was going to be complicated.
The government is putting on the spectacle for 1.3 billion people, and apparently considers the several million people who actually live in the capital more of an annoying security problem
than guests at the party.
Our office is on the parade route and so the surrounding streets would be shut down and all buildings emptied from nearly 24 hours before the parade to 24 hours after it, we were told.
The only way we could access stable, uncensored connections to the outside world was by staying at our desks the whole time. We persuaded building management to let the bureau chief, chief correspondent, a Chinese colleague and me to stay overnight — but we wouldn’t be allowed out, they warned.
So preparing for work on the 30th felt more like getting ready for a camping trip. I lumbered into the office with a backpack stuffed with sleeping bag, toiletries, pajamas, books (we expected a quiet evening) and mountains of food.
I find it hard to work properly when I’m hungry so — much to the amusement of my colleagues — I had brought stew, Chinese pancakes, a loaf of rye bread, cheese, tomatoes, apples, oranges,
cereal, soya milk, tuna (with can opener), baked beans, and a jar of tomato sauce.
My more modest colleague just opted for instant noodles.
As for spending the night in the office, it was dull but less of an ordeal than I expected. I curled up on sofa cushions from the pictures department and slept quite well.
(Reuters pictures by Nir Elias, David Gray, Tyrone Siu, Jason Lee)
12:00 : The military parade is followed by floats with huge portraits celebrating four generations of top communist leaders - Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and one which looked like Hu Jintao.
There are also floats depicting environmental protection featuring trees, shrubs and giant model leaves - lots of people waving flags that are a very unnatural looking green. Another float celebrated China’s success in swimming and diving at the Beijing Olympics, with what looked like medal winners.
As reporters Ben Blanchard and Lucy Hornby point out in this report Hu wants the day of extraordinary spectacle and security to make the case that the formula of one-party rule and rapid growth remains the right one for hauling the world’s third-biggest economy into prosperity, ruling 1.3 billion people and elevating China into a superpower.
11:10 a.m: Security arrangements for China’s 60th anniversary parade to make sure the televised show went without a hitch left many ordinary Beijing residents and citizens feeling left out.
As Lucy Hornby reports, five miles is a long way away, and so the small crowd that gathered by the China World Hotel to try and catch a glimpse of the National Day military parade on Tiananmen Square might be described as unduly optimistic.
But then again, the security for this parade could also be described as unduly restrictive. Even five miles away was too close, it seemed, as police with bullhorns ordered the grumbling crowd even further back, beyond the third ring road, and then even further and further east. “Well I figured I could at least see the airplanes in person. We’ve got the TV set to record at home,” said a middle-aged man who had come with his family from the nearby province of Hebei. The police and security guards were reasonably sympathetic with the crowd, most of whom looked like migrant workers from outside the city.
“”I understand you, I understand that you want to see the parade. Believe me, I’d like to see the parade too!” one yelled, as he shooed a few stragglers further from the police cordon.
But it was hard to understand what would be the problem with patriotic citizens actually seeing the parade, which viewed from a TV did indeed turn out to be very impressive.
“Now, if its such a great thing for China, why are they trying to stop everyone from having a look?” said Chris Hill, an Australian businessman whose efforts to see the parade were proving to be utterly unsuccessful.
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10:50 am :Tyra Dempster, a TV producer standing just in front of Mao’s portrait in Tinananmen Square, says the whole place reverberated with the cannons as the parade began. It felt as if all the masonry might come tumbling down. It is still very noisy, with all the marching and shouting. The troops are female soldiers marching past in what look like quite short skirts, which doesn’t seem like practical military kit.
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10:15 a.m:10:15 a.m: TV shows Hu driving along the Avenue of Eternal Peace, in what looks like a Chinese-made red flag limo, inspecting immaculate ranks of soldiers, male and female, from the army, navy and air force.
At intervals he shouts “Hello comrades! hardworking comrades!”. The troops are so well trained their heads turn in exact unison to follow his car. They reply “Serve the people!” or “Hello commande
Reuters pictures by Nir Elias,David Gray,Tyrone Siu, Jason Lee)
10 a.m:Hu Jintao has appeared on top of Tiananmen gate, wearing a dark modern take on a Mao suit. The rest of the top leadership appear to be in business suits and ties.
9:45 a.m: Hundreds of people are stranded at Beijing train station because several bus and metro services have been suspended and there aren’t enough cabs. Many were complaning bitterly, some saying they will never come to Beijing again, Kitty Bu from the television department said.
And in Hong Kong pro-democracy demonstrators gathered at the venue of the national day celebrations, carrying a mock coffin, symbolising those who died in the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square.
9:30 a.m: Ben Blanchard reports the weather is perfect for the national day parade after days of overcast gloom. Looks like clouding seeding worked ? Far from Tiananmen Square in the fashionable Drum Dowar area there is little security evident, he says. The narrow streets are lined with large red Chinese flags. It’sd all very quiet - perhaps people are still in bed.
Downtown Beijing has been awash with black-clad security troops sporting reflector sun-glasses, automatic guns and hulking black hum-vees and anti-riot vehicles, guarding the city for the 60th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Correspondent Chris Buckley says many of them look quite pleased with their expensive bling, even if their leather loafers can look a tad prissy and the
What’s the inspiration for this all-black chic? Some will blame the Bat Man film franchise. There are also plenty of menacing new buildings around Beijing that look like they were pinched straight from Gotham. The Reuters bureau is housed in one.
But the real inspiration may be “Black Cat Police Sergeant” (Hei mao jingzhang), a clunky but enduring Chinese cartoon series about a cat-cop who, when he is not vanquishing evil-doing animals, stands around looking very cool — if you’re a six-year old.
No Chinese childhood is complete without a dose of this cartoon, and locals can see Black Cat’s influence in the latest police fashions.
There is also the more recent Japanese import, Ultraman. a team of sleak, leaping superheroes who have entertained Chinese kids for many years, and apparently also inspired the couturiers at the Ministry of Public Security.
8:30 a.m. Police and journalists were up in the wee hours of Thursday, getting ready for China’s National Day parade. “That led to some friendly, pre-dawn comraderie with the hearty policemen manning the barricades at 5:30 am, while we all waited for some floats to roll by — the only glimpse either they or we will catch of this perfectly orchestrated parade,” correspondent Lucy Hornby reports.
There may be about 200,000 marchers, but the spectators are all being kept several city blocks away from the main parade route.
Even one cop, a stocky, cheerful 48-year-old with a strong Beijing accent, thought that was a bit excessive.
“Nowadays they have everything under tight control. They can’t let a lot of people near it, there would be too much potential for trouble. But when I was little we used to run right up and stand on the sidewalks as the parades went by. That was fun. Now everything’s much more strict.”
The People’s Republic of China will mark the 60th anniversary of its founding on Thursday with a military parade showcasing its growing political and economic clout.
Reuters correspondents, photographers and television crew will be blogging live the anniversary, tracking key events in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and elewhere in the country, through the day.
Ahead of the celebrations, correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison takes a look at China at 60 and Benjamin Kang Lim and Lucy Hornby report on the country’s plans to cut back its army and boost the air force and navy, a strategic move that could stoke regional tensions.
While Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's meeting with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in Russia captured all the attention, Singh's talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao may turn out to be just as important in easing off renewed pressure on the complex relationship between the world's rising powers.
India said this month it will bolster its defences on the unsettled China border, deploying up to 50,000 troops and its most latest Su-30 fighter aircraft at a base in the northeast.
While upgrading the defences has been a long-running objective, the timing seemed to suggest New Delhi's renewed fears of "strategic encirclement" by China by deepening ties with all of its neighbours, not just Pakistan but also Sri Lanka and Nepal.
The chief of the Indian air force, reflecting the anxieties in the security establishment, said China was a far bigger threat than Pakistan because so little was known about Beijing's combat capabilities.
Predictably enough, the Indian military moves and statements drew a strong response from China's official media warning that New Delhi's tough new posture was dangerous if it thought it would compel China to cave in. Beijing was in a different league, both in terms of national power, economic scale and global influence, the media said.
On Monday, Hu and Singh met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the BRIC meeting that followed in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg. Details from the meeting were sketchy, but the Press Trust of India said the two leaders supported an early meeting of a joint economic group to push trade ties.
They also touched on the border dispute at the heart of the more than four decades of distrust, noting that top negotiators were due to meet in August. The People's Daily said Hu stressed on expanding economic cooperation and investment flows and aims to take bilateral trade to $60 billion in 2010. It stood at $51.8 billion in 2008, the paper said.
India's decision to attend the SCO, where it has observer status, was also a step forward. Since its inception the forum has been seen in India as China-centric with the main strategic objective of limiting U.S. dominance on China's periphery and in that way prevent the hemming-in of both China and Russia.
By attending the summit is New Dehi signalling its intention to engage China on a broad front and not shy away?
And did Beijing shift ground a bit by acceding to the declaration by the BRIC - Brazil, Russia, India and China - calling for U.N. reform and saying that the grouping understood and supported India and Brazil's aspirations to play a greater role in the United Nations.
Both Brazil and India are candidates for permanent members of the Security Council and Beijing has long been cold to the idea of at least its southern neighbour getting a place on the high table. It wasn't a ringing endorsement at Yekaterinburg but perhaps the first shuffling of chairs?
[Manmohan Singh and Hu Jintao at the SCO summit and a Chinese soldier at the border]
I’m at the Olympics in my role as Editor-in-Chief — that means I’m doing some journalism and some “representational” work as the senior person from Reuters News and Thomson Reuters in Beijing for the Games.
In the representational role, I was invited to Chinese President Hu Jintao’s state banquet along with a score of other media leaders — among them News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch, the BBC’s Mark Thompson, AP’s Tom Curley, Russia’s Rianovosti’s Chief Editor Svetlana Mironyuk and Dr. Dinh The Huynh, member of Vietnam’s Communist Party Central Committee and Editor-in-Chief of the Nhan Dan newspaper.
Held in the vast and imposing Great Hall of the People off Tiananmen Square, the banquet was an amazing opportunity to see Chinese leaders in a rare informal pose and to chat with a variety of current and former world leaders.
“Reuters? I have no problem with Reuters, but of course I’m out of all that now,” former U.S. President George H.W. Bush said to me.
Singapore’s Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew asked me sharply if we’d report the Olympics fairly. I replied that China’s Xinhua news agency had already quoted my assertion that we would! (I think if you read all our coverage you’ll see that we are applying our usual, global standards of good journalism to everything we do here).
The banquet itself — each large round table graced with a pair of huge peacocks carved out of radishes — went off with military precision, plates presented and then whisked away to make sure that everyone would get out in good time to do some business in the afternoon before the grand opening ceremony.
I was told that two practice banquets had been held, one five days before and one 10 days before, to get the timing and the presentation exactly right.
“Doubles” from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs played the part of every guest.
In the event, the real guests seemed to eat faster than expected — or perhaps the diplomatic doubles simply relaxed and drank more than we felt like doing on a hot, sticky summer’s afternoon.
For the record, we ate:
Lantern-shaped Assorted Delicacies as starters
Pine mushroom Chicken Soup in a White Gourd Cup
Beefsteak Wrapped in Lotus Leaf
Seasonal Greens in Bird’s Nest
Peking Duck
Cod with Soy Sauce
Cheesecake
Fruit
Ice Cream
What I really want to know is: in the rehearsals did my body double also spill ice cream down his tie, just like I did?
Photo: Chinese President Hu Jintao (at podium) delivers a speech during a banquet at the Great Hall of people in Beijing August 8, 2008. REUTERS/Minoru Iwasaki/Pool
I’m at the Olympics in my role as Editor-in-Chief — that means I’m doing some journalism and some “representational” work as the senior person from Reuters News and Thomson Reuters in Beijing for the Games.
