TAIWAN, CHINA LEADERS TO MEET FOR FIRST TIME SINCE 1949

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore on Saturday, the first time leaders of the two countries have met since the 1940s, the Associated Press reported.

Talks will focus on an exchange of ideas concerning relations between the two sides, though no deals will be signed, Chinese presidential spokesman Charles Chen said Wednesday.

The AP says hostilities between the two nations have cooled since Ma, the Nationalist president, took office in 2008. Since then, 23 deals covering trade, transit and investments have been signed, binding Taiwan closer to its top trading partner.

The last time leaders from the two countries met was in 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists lost the Chinese civil war to Mao Zedong’s Communists. The Nationalists rebased in Taiwan, and the two sides have ruled separately since. China insists that the two eventually reunite, by force if necessary.