As with most things Chinese, the recent visit to the mainland by leader of Taiwan's main opposition Nationalist Party, Lien Chan, is yielding multiple meanings. Analysts interpret the significance of the visit in a variety of ways. It was the first time that a Taiwanese leader was officially hosted in Beijing. With this, China appeared to have turned a new leaf in its relations with Taiwan.

Lien was shown more than the usual courtesies and was treated like a visiting head of State. This is unusual and has led analysts to different conclusions on what the Chinese initiative might hold for future course of China-Taiwan relations. Considering that China has been very sensitive to international opinion on its one China policy, it was indeed a development of significance.

It is possible that the Chinese decision to ease its relations with Taiwan, which it had been treating as a renegade province since the 1949 revolution, might have been influenced by recent developments in the sphere of Sino-Japanese relations. It is worth recalling that Taiwan was annexed by Japan in 1895 and it had remained so until the Japanese were defeated at the end of World War II, when the island reverted to China again. However, four years later it became the stronghold of Chiang Kai Shek's Kuomintang government after he had lost control of the mainland.

Chinese President Hu Jianto, who hosted the visiting politician, held extensive talks with Lien in the Great Hall. During the talks, he offered to ease travel and trade conditions between the mainland and the island, as if Lien represented the Taipei government. This suggests that the visit was not meant to be a one time affair and Beijing has plans for an enduring engagement with the island even as it might resist dealing with those at the helm in Taipei. In due course, these initiatives are bound to affect the nature of relationship that Beijing has insisted on observing with the Taiwanese regime, which it treated like it was some kind of an international pariah.

Last year, over 3.6 million Taiwanese visited China, while less than 150,000 Chinese visited Taiwan. More travel and tourism will improve the people-to-people contacts and ease tensions between the two sides. President Hu also presented two Chinese pandas to the visiting leader, symbolising a gesture of goodwill towards the people more than the leader of a particular political formation.

Another interpretation is that the Chinese opening up to Taiwan underlined the primacy of economics over politics in the new Chinese vision of a changing world order. It is inevitable that with increasing interactions, China itself may be moving towards greater democratisation even though the process might appear a slow one.

Some people in Taiwan, however, interpret the Chinese move as an attempt to divide public opinion in the island country. At about the same time, the Taiwanese President was visiting Fiji with regard to a deal over sugar purchases; an indication that Taiwan would persist with affirming its international profile. Thus, even as a certain degree of polarisation might be in the offing in the wake of the Beijing visit, it should still be within manageable limits of the Taiwanese political system. Others have seen it as representing a gradual recognition of the ground realities by the Chinese leadership.

Though Lien had clarified at the outset that he was not carrying any message or feeler from the Taiwanese President to his Chinese hosts, there is a feeling that the visit could help set the pace for normalisation of relations. President George Bush has urged Chinese President Hu to follow this initiative up with a more formal engagement with President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan. For the sake of form, at least, President Chen has invited President Hu to visit Taipei to see for himself how Taiwan is functioning as a sovereign State. Beijing may not be ready yet for promoting official level contacts between the two sides, but there is no mistaking the fact that relations between Taipei and Beijing may no longer remain the way they have all through the 56 years since the revolution. Times, indeed, are changing, and signs of new winds blowing across the Taiwan Strait are becoming unmistakable.