Taiwan's main opposition party is offering help to flood-hit parts of China, a humanitarian gesture that also carries clear political weight across the strait.

• KMT chair Cheng Li-wun said the party will send experts in flood control, geology, search and rescue, and medical care if the disaster zones want them.
• Heavy rain since late July has hit large parts of China, with over 210,000 people affected in Shaanxi alone and a levee breach in Henan.
• A major landslide at a border crossing in Tibet has killed three people and left more than 265 missing.
• Southern Taiwan is dealing with its own severe flooding from monsoon rains and a tropical depression at the same time.
• The framing — that disasters know no politics or borders, and that people on both sides should help each other — sits squarely within the KMT's cross-strait outreach.

Outlook: Whether Beijing takes up the offer will be read as a signal about how much room it wants to give the KMT ahead of Taiwan's next election cycle.