Talk strait

IN THE dying days of China’s civil war, Mao Zedong’s Communist forces chased the remnants of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s army from their hideouts in south-west China. Mao had declared the founding of a new “people’s republic” a month earlier. He had only some mopping up to do, and the vast mainland would be his. Chiang, however, denied Mao a complete victory: he fled to the island of Taiwan, where he kept up the pretence that he still ruled China. The two sides never declared a ceasefire. Although there is no fighting today, the unfinished business of 1949 remains one of the world’s biggest potential sources of conflict between two nuclear-armed powers: China, and Taiwan’s only military backer, America.On the face of it, then, the surprising news that Ma Ying-jeou, the president of Taiwan, will meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on November 7th, is cause for celebration. It will be the first such meeting between the two sides since Chiang’s flight. Only two decades ago the threat was war, as China fired missiles in the Taiwan Strait and America sailed aircraft-carriers close to the island to ward off China. Today Mr Ma is preparing for talks and a dinner with Mr Xi in a luxury hotel in Singapore (see ). Yet, although that is undoubtedly progress, dangers still lurk.