In diplomacy there is an unofficial statute of limitations on rows that poison state-to-state relations.
He appreciates the need for it indeed, he notes that in state-to-state relations, knowing what the other side thinks actually enhances stability.
Diplomatic service is not just about service abroad, it is also about promoting the image of the country and maintaining a certain decorum in state-to-state relations.
Compounding the problem is that both societies are controlled at the top, leaving outsiders little leverage to affect change except through formal state-to-state relations.
Although Lee appears to have had multiple reasons for making his declaration about state-to-state relations, the U.S. pressure was clearly an important factor.
This can be an unfamiliar challenge for authoritarian China, whose foreign policy is heavily based on state-to-state relations, with little appreciation of the gulf between African rulers and their people.
Mr. Chen has avoided provocative statements, deliberately not uttering, for example, the phrase state-to-state relations, which the outgoing president, Lee Teng-husedused last summer to the outrage of Beijing.
If elected, he has pledged not to declare independence, not to hold a referendum on the issue, and not to put the phrase "special state-to-state" relations into Taiwan's Constitution.
"Maintaining state-to-state relations and developing cultural and economic exchanges with this great country shouldn't lead us to keep silent on the absence of democracy in China," remarked Jack Lang, a former minister in France's past socialist administration.
What made China furiously denounce Taiwan's president, Lee Teng-hui, last summer was his statement that relations between Taiwan and China are "special state-to-state relations," implying that Taiwan was a separate state.
While China insists that it wants normal state-to-state relations with North Korea, it is not prepared to impose conditions on its isolated, troublesome neighbor, much less undertake a larger reassessment of its policies.
