Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) met the leader of the New Party yesterday and said they should join hands to promote Taiwan's unification with China, Chinese state media reported.
New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明) was the third opposition leader to meet Hu this year amid Chinese efforts to isolate President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) by forging ties with his rivals.
Hu praised the New Party's support for unification, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
"It is ... the goal of our two parties to firmly oppose `Taiwan independence' and promote peaceful reunification of the country," Xinhua quoted Hu as saying.
Earlier yesterday, Yok said in a speech to students at Beijing's Renmin University of China that he would take his improved understanding of China back with him to Taiwan, Xinhua reported.
Yok's weeklong trip to China also was meant to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Japan's defeat at the end of World War II.
Meanwhile, a senior Chinese official earlier yesterday met with New Party delegates and called on Taiwanese people to fight "Taiwan independence" in the way they fought Japan when it invaded China 60 years ago, Chinese state media reported yesterday.
The official made the remarks despite the fact that many Taiwanese fought on Japan's side in World War II, when Taiwan was still a Japanese colony. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) soldiers, some of whom did fight against the Japanese in China, did not arrive in Taiwan until the late 1940s, after being defeated by the Chinese communists who still hold power in Beijing.
Wang Zaixi (王在希), vice minister of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said the 1937-1945 war against the Japanese had taught Chinese people that "only a rich and powerful China can avoid being bullied by others."
"Escalating secessionist activities pose the biggest and most destructive threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait," Wang told a forum attended by the New Party delegates.
"Only by opposing and curbing Taiwan's secession from China can we safeguard cross-strait peace and stability," he said, according to the China Daily.
He urged Taiwanese "to launch an all-out fight against secessionist forces."
Wang also said China had to achieve unification to become powerful, the report said.
"Only a reunited China can really become a powerful country in the world," he said.
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