Word: straits
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...just 37 pieces this time (comprising Qing dynasty paintings, vases, seals and other artifacts), and they are strictly on loan from Beijing's Palace Museum. But the gesture is unprecedented, emotionally charged and heralded as one of the fruits of Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou's conciliatory cross-strait policy...
...disloyal subjects bent on denying China's Party-given right to rule them. Put the two together and you have the mainland's worst "splittist" nightmare. As the Dalai Lama sat down with all the island's then top political figures, Beijing practically tossed every invective across the narrow Strait of Taiwan short of declaring war. (Read "Why Taiwan's President Allowed the Dalai Lama Visit...
...growing numbers of tourists, scholars, journalists, businesspeople and even senior officials crossing the Strait in both directions have enabled China to better understand what makes Taiwan tick. Now Beijing's strategy is more nuanced. That's partly tactical: the hard-line approach was driving people to the DPP. But it's also an effort to win Taiwan hearts and minds and to show that China, too, is more complex than a caricature of a totalitarian state...
...okay the visit and condemned by Beijing if he did. Ma took a gamble: he approved the trip - and bet on China's leaders appreciating his dilemma. They did. Their censure was directed solely at the DPP, with no mention of Ma whatsoever. Far from harming cross-strait relations, the Dalai Lama's visit revealed how mature those relations have become...
...Strait of Taiwan was long one of the world's flash points, with the potential to draw even the U.S. into conflict. It's hard to predict the future China and Taiwan have with each other, but it's easy to imagine, given all the progress that has occurred, that war is no longer a possibility. That's something to be thankful for - and something truly deserving of a Dalai Lama's blessing...