AP: Taiwan’s President Seeks Talks With China

From the Associate Press, via ABC News:

Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian on Monday offered peace talks with Beijing, apparently seeking to regain the high ground from a political rival who is on a headline-grabbing visit to China.

On Tuesday, China announced it was giving a pair of giant pandas to the people of Taiwan plus concessions on fruit imports and tourism, in a mix of symbolic and concrete gestures apparently designed to give opposition leader Lien something to take home with him to Taiwan.

Implicit in Chen’s speech during a visit to the Marshall Islands was a message to Chinese leaders that they should be talking to him, the elected president, not to Lien Chan, the man he has twice defeated at the polls.