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BEIJING: The head of Taiwan’s ruling party arrived in China on
Monday for the highest-level contact with the communist mainland’s
leadership in 60 years.
Kuomintang chairman Wu Poh-hsiung landed in the
eastern city of Nanjing, with his arrival broadcast on national
television in a rare break from China’s blanket media coverage of
the aftermath of its deadly earthquake.
His arrival at the head of a 16-member KMT
delegation invited by China is a clear sign of easing tensions since
his China-friendly party defeated Taiwan’s pro-independence
Democratic Progressive Party in a March presidential poll.
The KMT’s Ma Ying-jeou was sworn in as
president on May 20.
“We hope that through our continuous mutual
efforts we can put aside our differences, work on our common
interests and create a win-win situation,” Wu said in remarks
delivered at a welcoming ceremony on the airport tarmac.
“Inviting us to visit in the midst of such a
large earthquake disaster shows that cross-strait ties are extremely
important.”
Wu will meet Chinese President Hu Jintao in
Beijing on Wednesday, underscoring the rapid improvement in ties.
Direct links between the two sides have been cut
since the nationalist KMT government of China fled to Taiwan
following defeat by Mao Zedong’s Communists in a civil war.
For decades, the KMT and China’s Communist
Party were the most bitter of Cold War foes, but the KMT has in
recent years staked out a platform of reconciliation.
The visit comes as the two sides prepared to
resume a series of talks on bilateral issues which have been stalled
for more than a decade.
The talks were last held in 1995, but China
suspended follow-up meetings in protest over a visit to the United
States that year by Taiwan’s then-president Lee Teng-hui of the
KMT.
Taiwan said last week the talks would resume
next month with the aim of building closer trade and tourism links
with Beijing.
Key issues would be starting weekend passenger
charter and cargo flights as well as allowing more Chinese tourists
to visit Taiwan, said Lai Shin-yuan, the island’s new top China
policy-maker.
Wu and his delegation had to transit through
Hong Kong and then take a charter flight to Nanjing as direct air
links still do not exist across the 180-kilometer wide (110-mile)
Taiwan Strait.
Wu is slated to visit Shanghai on Thursday and a
Buddhist temple the next day in the eastern Chinese province of
Jiangsu to “pray for cross-strait peace and the victims killed by
the Sichuan earthquake,” the KMT said earlier.
Taiwan has sent a rescue team to southwest
Sichuan province to help in the aftermath of the devastating
earthquake there, which has killed more than 65,000 people and left
more than 23,000 missing.
Despite their past animosity, Taiwan’s
government has pledged 800 million Taiwan dollars (US$26 million)
for earthquake relief and raised another 1.2 billion from the
public.
Wu said in Nanjing that the help Taiwan has
provided China illustrated the deep connection that people of both
sides feel as fellow Chinese.
The island’s charities, businesses and
individuals have already donated at least 2.4 billion Taiwan
dollars, according to reports in Taipei.
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