Hu Jintao, Chinese president and Communist chief, on Friday met Lien Chan, chairman of Taiwan's Kuomintang, sealing a historic rapprochement between rival parties that vied for decades to control China.

The meeting brought a symbolic end to the epic conflict between the Communist party (CCP) and KMT that raged after Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek held the last summit between their leaders in 1945 and which endured after Mao chased Chiang into exile to Taiwan four years later.