Chinese President Hu Jintao (right) shakes hands with Lien Chan, former chairman of Taiwan's main opposition Nationalist Party, in Beijing's Great Hall of the People yesterday. Hu yesterday called for talks between China and Taiwan as soon as possible to maintain peace in the region. - REUTERS
BEIJING (AP):
CHINESE PRESIDENT Hu Jintao urged Taiwan's leaders yesterday to agree to new talks, while calling the island's independence advocates a danger to the region's peace.
"Only by opposing and checking Taiwan's independence forces can we eliminate the biggest threat harming the peaceful and stable development of ties across the strait," Hu said during a televised meeting with a former leader of Taiwan's main opposition party.
Taiwan likely will be one of the prickly topics during Hu's visit to the White House on Thursday since the mainland has threatened to attack if Taiwan pursues formal independence and the U.S. government is legally bound to assist the island's defense.
Long-standing American policy holds there is only one China, but the United States says differences between the mainland and the island should be negotiated peacefully and warns against resorting to a war that it says would be harmful to all three parties.
Despite Beijing's insistence that it will regain control of Taiwan, which broke away during civil war in 1949, Chinese leaders also are pursuing a campaign of enticements designed to reassure Taiwanese and isolate the island's president, Chen Shui-bian, who is cool to union.
OPEN TO TALKS
China and Taiwan should "resume talks on an equal footing as soon as possible," Hu told Lien Chan, former chairman of Taiwan's Nationalist Party, which supports the island's eventual reunification with the mainland.
Beijing frequently says it is open to talks with the Taipei government based on the "one-China" principle that both sides adopted in 1992, but Chen has rejected the idea.
The two sides have not had official high-level contacts of any kind since the late 1990s. And leaders of China and Taiwan have never met since the communists took over the mainland in 1949 and the U.S.-allied losing side took refuge on the island 100 miles offshore.
