The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) have agreed to allow KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) to visit China, a Hong Kong daily said yesterday.
"Chinese authorities have agreed in principle to the idea of Lien Chan ... visiting China in June this year," a Hong Kong's Ming Pao daily quoted "reliable sources" as saying.
The report comes amid the media hype surrounding the visit of a 30-member KMT delegation headed by party Vice Chairman Chiang Pin-kun (江丙坤) on a self-proclaimed "ice-breaking journey" to China.
Chiang yesterday held a meeting in Beijing with Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of China's State Council, that marked the first of such meetings between the two former rival parties 56 years after 1949, when the KMT was militarily defeated by the Chinese Communist Party in the civil war. The meeting was reportedly focusing on economic cooperation and cross-strait exchanges.
"We have openly reiterated many times that we are willing to talk with any Taiwan representatives, groups or parties, who accept the 92 `consensus' and oppose Taiwan's independence," Chen said during the meeting.
Chen Yunlin said the meeting covered issues including importing agricultural products from Taiwan, resuming exportation of fishermen to Taiwan, cross-strait insurance and monetary exchanges, regular cross-strait flights on the weekend and holidays and direct cargo flights.
The trip has been touted by the KMT as the first contact between party leaders since the KMT fled to Taiwan in 1949. According to the Ming Pao, KMT Legislator Chu Feng-chih (朱鳳芝), a member of the KMT delegation, revealed that if the current trip was successful and if Beijing extended goodwill, Lien's proposed trip to China might be possible in June.
The Ming Pao reported that there was a tacit agreement reached last year that Lien would visit China prior to assuming the presidency if he won the election, and that Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) would meet him in person. The plan was dropped after Lien lost the election.
Meanwhile, Chiang visited the tomb of party founder Sun Yat-sen yesterday, laying a wreath at Sun's mausoleum outside Nanjing, the Nationalists' former capital. Both the CCP and the KMT revere Sun as leader of the 1911 revolution that ended imperial rule and created a Chinese republic.
"My heart was filled with limitless excitement and deep emotion," Chiang said. "It was very moving to visit."
Chiang's visit comes amid a surge in tensions over China's "Anti-Secession" Law. Chiang also visited the former Nationalist presidential office, where he signed a guestbook with the phrase "ice-breaking journey."
Both the KMT and the communists see his five-day trip as sealing a reconciliation. They have found common cause in uniting Taiwan with China and their dislike for President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Meanwhile, Chinese academics yesterday said in Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po that the time was not yet "ripe" for chairman of the National People's Congress' Standing Committee Wu Bangguo (吳邦國) to visit Taiwan, but said that Taiwan was taking the initiative in cross-strait relations by paying visits to China.
KMT Legislative Speaker Wang Jing-pyng had proposed sending a delegation to China to invite his Chinese counterpart to Taiwan on Tuesday.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
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