But that has not brought much sympathy in Taiwan for any kind of Chinese security umbrella, let alone unification.
If the Brazilian jazz composer Moacir Santos stopped at making his great record "Coisas," from 1965, that would have been quite enough: it is an achievement that stands alone, a brilliant unification of large-ensemble jazz arranging, wickedly persuasive songwriting and Afro-Brazilian rhythm.
Yet Mr Bossi's followers are not alone in feeling lukewarm about unification.
As the German unification experience shows, a shared ethnic identity alone will not be able to prevent North Koreans from becoming "second-class citizens" in a unified Korea.
Conscious of the diminishing room for political manoeuvre, they shy away from farsighted goals and constructive political projects, let alone an undertaking like European unification.
It was for them a spiritual being of lower rank, which had descended altogether into the material world, while for Plotinus a part remained above; they could not therefore aspire, like Plotinus, through philosophy alone, to that return to and unification with the divine that remained for them the goal of human life.
We challenge this idea of smart cities being another stand-alone initiative and explore how integration of plans and unification of smart city visions with the overarching city development goals can better support effective urban transformation and local innovation.
One is the sum of money involved: suspect contracts totalling almost €800m ($1.1 billion) were awarded for one event alone, the celebration next year of the 150th anniversary of Italian unification.
But Germany, a country for which cold-war deterrence proved effective and ultimately brought about its unification, is attached to the notion that something that has worked should be left alone unless there is certainty that its replacement will work as well.
Grass worked as a speech writer for Willy Brandt when the politician was mayor of Berlin Grass was almost alone in criticising reunification in 1990, declaring that Germany had lost the moral right to unification because of the horrors of the concentration camps.
