Hardly a week goes by without a visit to Communist China by a leader of one of the 162 nations with which it has diplomatic ties. By contrast Taiwan has formal ties with just 27 countries and rarely receives a call from a world leader of any stature.
Forty-nine years after losing the Chinese civil war to the Communists and fleeing into exile on Taiwan, the Nationalists have lost and continue to lose the diplomatic war for international recognition. Beijing on the other hand has strengthened its case for peaceful reunification by making Hong Kong a model of the one-country-two-systems policy by which it hopes to entice Taiwan back to the motherland.
China therefore would seem to hold the cards in the resumed dialogue between the two sides, which brought together President Jiang Zemin of China and a Taiwan envoy, Mr Koo Chen-fu, in Beijing on Sunday in the highestlevel contact between the once-bitter enemies since 1949.
The gap between the two sides remains wide, however. China and Taiwan have no diplomatic or trade links, nor have they any direct air, sea or mail communication (though Taiwan has invested £24 billion in China), and their military forces confront each other across the Taiwan Straits.
Despite its diplomatic strangulation by Beijing, Taiwan possesses superior military might, thanks to armament purchases in the West, and in this respect can speak to Beijing as an equal and state preconditions for reunification.
The main prerequisite is democratisation of the mainland, Mr Koo told President Jiang. "Only when the Chinese mainland has achieved democracy can the two sides of the Taiwan Strait talk about reunification," said the 81year-old Taiwan tycoon who is a senior member of the ruling Nationalist Party. In urging Mr Jiang to "take a brave stride forward on the path to democratisation", Mr Koo adds weight to those who are pressing for an accelerated move towards democracy.
In an earlier meeting, Vice-Premier Qian Qichen told Mr Koo sharply that reunification must not be conditional on democracy. "By reunification, we mean to safeguard the state territorial integrity and sovereignty," Mr Qian said. "It is obviously not realistic for some people in Taiwan to preach that `Taiwan-style democracy' should be the decisive factor."
China insists that Taiwan accept that their is only one China and that Beijing is the capital, and it has international support for this view.
Taiwan was prodded towards the table by President Clinton's strong reaffirmation in June that the US would not support a declaration of independence by Taiwan. The thaw in China-Taiwan relations ends a stand-off begun three years ago when low-level dialogue was suspended after President Lee Teng-hui of Taiwan was allowed to visit the US, a move Beijing saw as pro-independence.
The resumed dialogue will continue next year when Mr Wang Daohan, chairman of China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, visits Taiwan.