BEIJING, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Wang Yi, director of the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, met Taiwan's chief negotiator Chiang Pin-kun Thursday afternoon at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing.

    Chiang, chairman of the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), arrived in Beijing around 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday to attend talks with the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS).

    It is the first round of talks between the ARATS and SEF in nine years.