The meeting between the presidents of China and Taiwan will be a genuinely historic moment — but nobody should expect it to herald a resolution of what is one of the most treacherous faultlines in international politics.
As the first summit since the Communist mainland and the former Japanese colony were divided by civil war in 1949, Saturday’s encounter between China’s Xi Jinping of China and Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan certainly sets an important precedent.
Mr Xi also appears to have agreed to meet Mr Ma on level terms — both leaders will address each other by the neutral honorific xiansheng, or “mister” — sending a message of flexibility in dealings with Taiwan, which Beijing insists is an integral part of its own sovereign territory.