Li Weiyi, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office invites a question at a press conference in Beijing November 16, 2005. [Xinhua]

BEIJING, Nov. 17 -- Beijing yesterday urged Taipei to be pragmatic about a planned visit to the island by the mainland's top official in charge of cross-Straits affairs.

    Chen Yunlin, minister of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, is scheduled to visit Taiwan in mid-December for a high-level forum between the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the island's opposition Kuomintang (KMT).

    The KMT has filed an application for the visit with the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), the island's decision-making body on mainland policy.

    If approved, Chen would be the highest-level mainland official to visit the island since 1949.

    "We hope the Taiwan authorities deal with the visit in a pragmatic way and facilitate it," said Li Weiyi, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office.

    He told a regular press conference that the Forum on Cross-Straits Economy and Culture will discuss agricultural and financial co-operation and the establishment of the three direct links in business, transport and postal services.

    The event, made possible following a historic trip to the mainland by then KMT Chairman Lien Chan in April, aims to push for peace and stability in bilateral relations, Li said.

    He emphasized that Chen's visit, in his capacity as director of the Taiwan Work Office of the CPC Central Committee, is for party-to-party exchanges.

    The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration has tried to politicize the issue.

    Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian said on November 5 that Chen Yunlin will never be allowed to visit the island because "Taiwan is not part of China."

    Later, the DPP administration warned that Taipei will not permit the trip unless either Chen Yunlin agrees to talk to MAC Chairman Joseph Wu during his trip or Wu is allowed to visit the mainland.

    However, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) on Monday sent a letter to its mainland counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), asking for talks on Chen Yunlin's trip.

    The SEF and ARATS are semi-official negotiating bodies for the two sides in the absence of official links.

    You Ying-lung, vice-chairman of the SEF, said due to Chen Yunlin's status, the two sides must first start consultations on security and other arrangements before the island would allow him in.

    Li, however, said Taipei has been "self-contradictory and inconsistent" on the issue, and is attempting to politicize the visit. "We hope the Taiwan side will not hinder the visit (of Chen Yunlin)," he said.

    The spokesman went on to hint that Beijing would not enter talks with Taipei due to "the reason known to all." He was referring to the pro-independence DPP administration's refusal to accept the one-China principle that both the mainland and Taiwan are part of China.

    Li also called for early non-government negotiations between mainland and Taiwanese airline associations on chartered flights for the upcoming Spring Festival holidays.

    A historic two-way, non-stop cross-Straits chartered-flight scheme was put into place for the 2005 Spring Festival, the first time in 56 years.

    Meanwhile, in Kyoto, Japan, US President George W. Bush stressed that Washington follows the "one-China" policy.

    He urged the Chinese mainland and Taiwan to promote "dialogue...that leads to a peaceful resolution of their differences."

    Bush is on his first leg of a four-nation Asia tour that will also take him to the Republic of Korea, China and Mongolia.

    
(Source: China Daily)