The leaders of mainland China and Taiwan have publicly exchanged greetings for the first time in 60 years.
 

Chinese President Hu Jintao has congratulated his Taiwanese counterpart Ma Ying-jeou with his election as chair of the nationalist Kuomintang party. President Ma replied that bilateral relations were "on the track of peace". This is expected to increase the likelihood of a meeting between the two leaders.
 

Communist China has never accepted Taiwan's independence, which has made any high-level meeting politically highly sensitive.
 

The island of Taiwan declared independence from mainland China in 1949, the year in which Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan to escape the communist forces of Mao Zedong. Relations between the two countries have been extremely tense ever since.