A Taiwanese cabinet minister will travel to mainland China for the first time under the Lai government, a small thaw in an otherwise frozen relationship.

• Labor Minister Hung Sun-han will attend the APEC human resources ministers' meeting in Nanjing in late September.
• He is the first minister-level official to go to China since Lai Ching-te took office.
• Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council says he still has to apply and get approval from the joint review committee, the same process used for every APEC meeting this year.
• Beijing says his entry will be handled under the "one China principle" and the APEC memorandum, leaving the travel-document question deliberately vague.
• The Mainland Affairs Council pushed back on media confusion over a public disclosure system for China trips, saying that registry is for religious and civic groups, not officials on government business.

Outlook: The trip is a warm-up for the bigger test in November, when China hosts the APEC leaders' summit in Shenzhen and Taiwan's representation becomes a live fight.