TAIPEI -- British writer George Bernard Shaw once said that Americans and Brits were two peoples separated by the same language. This is an even more apt description when describing the Chinese and Taiwanese. A week of visits to Taiwan and China leaves me once again to marvel at how poorly two peoples who share a common language and heritage understand or communicate with one another.

One case in point: A common complaint on the Mainland is that Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian and other senior ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) leaders deny their "Chineseness." This is only partially true. Chen refuses to state that he is Chinese, for fear that this would be interpreted as "Chinese citizen," which would then be interpreted as "PRC citizen," which would then be interpreted as accepting Beijing's authority over the 23 million people of Taiwan, something no Taiwanese leader regardless of political affiliation could do.

But Chen (referred to by Beijing as the "so-called" president or one of the "Taiwanese authorities") has announced that he would like to visit the home of his ancestors on the mainland, which sounds pretty much like an admission of his Chineseness to me. Instead of praising this comment and perhaps even extending an invitation, Beijing rejects the visit request as a trick or "insincere" and interprets Chen's cautiousness on the heritage issue as further proof that the DPP is pursuing a policy of "creeping independence." Meanwhile, Taipei sees China's continued insistence on acceptance of a "one China" policy, regardless of definition, as "creeping jurisdiction." The casualty in all this is what is really needed: namely, creeping reconciliation.