Asian Insider: Whither cross-strait relations | True crimes of Asia

Dear ST reader,

What were you doing 30 years ago, on this date? Over at the 26th floor of the NOL Building at Alexandra Road in Singapore, history was being made. Negotiators from China and Taiwan met for talks that broke the deep freeze after the Chinese civil war.

In this special anniversary package, our global affairs correspondent Benjamin Kang Lim traces the fraught journey that brought both sides to the table, and looks ahead to what promises to be just as turbulent a course for cross-Strait ties.

Two pairs of father and son – one from Taiwan and one from China – opened up to Taiwan correspondent Yip Wai Yee and China bureau chief Tan Dawn Wei on how they view their identity and that of those on the opposite side of the strait.

Meanwhile, our editor-at-large Han Fook Kwang writes on how another meeting in Singapore – this one, more recent, held last week – of Chinese and American academics provided a safe space for both sides to exchange their views honestly and to understand each other better, an essential step before the acrimonious relationship between the two superpowers can improve.

A different sense of loss is at play in India, where scores of ancient monuments have gone missing. In this Letter from New Delhi, India correspondent Debarshi Dasgupta examines how it is that such valuable heritage can disappear without a trace. A 14th-century Vishnu temple in Rajasthan’s Jolpa nearly met that fate when it was to be pulled down by locals to make way for a new temple, before a non-profit heritage trust intervened.

And one last highlight: if you have a taste for procedural crime stories, this may be just for you.

The Straits Times has launched a six-part podcast series, exploring recent real crimes that gripped, horrified and laid bare troubling challenges in Asia. It debuts with South Korea correspondent Chang May Choon telling us about rampant digital sex crimes in the highly-wired East Asian society, as well as sharing her own experience as a Singaporean woman living in Seoul.

Enjoy.