KMT leader to visit mainland April 26-May 3
(Xinhua/Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-20 10:37

Lien Chan, chairman of Taiwan's Kuomintang (KMT) party, will visit the mainland cities of Nanjing, Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai from April 26 to May 3, officials said Wednesday.

Jia Qinglin (right), Standing Committee member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, meets Chiang Pin-kun, Kuomintang vice-chairman and leader of the 34-member delegation from Taiwan, March 31 at Beijing's Great Hall of the People. Jia, also chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee, is the highest Beijing official to meet Chiang in the KMT's first official mainland visit in 56 years. [newsphoto]

The schedule was jointly decided by the Taiwan Work Office of Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the relevant department of the KMT party.

Lien will lead a KMT delegation for the visit at the invitation of Hu Jintao, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

On April 18, Chen Yunlin, director of the Taiwan Work Office of CPC Central Committee, held talks with Lin Feng-cheng, secretary-general of the KMT party, to finalize details of Lien's trip.

"I will sincerely exchange views with Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Hu Jintao on issues of mutual concerns," Lien Chan told KMT officials and reporters.

"My goal is to seek peace and stability over the Taiwan Strait and to create a mutually beneficial basis for the future development of cross-strait relations," he said.

Taiwan opposition leader Lien Chan tells the party's decision-making Central Standing Committee that his planned meeting with Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Hu Jintao next week will help bring peace in the Taiwan Strait April 20, 2005. Lien, head of the party that once ruled all of China before losing it to the CPC party in the civil war in 1949, will embark on what he called a "journey of peace" to the mainland on April 26, becoming the first Nationalist chairman to set foot on the mainland in more than half a century. [Reuters]

Lien will be the first KMT chairman to visit the mainland since the then ruling party fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war.

Lien brushed aside criticism from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) that he was collaborating with the mainland to marginalize the DPP.

"We are making the trip with peace, goodwill and sincerity in mind... there is no need to blow up the issue like some 'friends' are deliberately doing so," he said.

Lien is scheduled to head to Nanjing on April 26 on his eight-day "peace trip" that will also take him to Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai.

The KMT leader is expected to deliver a speech at Peking University on the morning of April 29 and meet Hu in the afternoon.

He is also due to address Taiwanese businessmen in Shanghai on May 2, and may even meet Wang Daohan, president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, according to KMT officials.

Taiwanese authorities Monday warned the opposition leader against inking any agreements during the trip.

"If Mr. Lien signs any agreement with Beijing involving the right of the government, he would violate the law," said Joseph Wu, head of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council.

Local media reports have said Lien and Hu are expected to agree on formally ending the civil war that led to their division in 1949.

Beijing last month extended an invitation to Lien while KMT vice chairman P.K. Chiang led the party's first "bridge-building" trip to the mainland in more than 55 years.

Separately, Hu Monday invited James Soong, head of Taiwan's second biggest opposition People First Party (PFP), for a visit.

The PFP, in alliance with the KMT, forms the main opposition to the DPP.

Cross-strait tensions have escalated since the DPP's Chen Shui-bian won the "presidency" in 2000, ending the KMT's 51-year grip on power.

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