Landmark visit to Taiwan

Cross-Straits relations are bracing for a milestone event with Beijing's top envoy on Taiwan affairs visiting the island next week.

Chen Yunlin, president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), is scheduled to lead a 60-strong delegation to the island for talks from Nov 3 to 7.

The visit comes as a symbol of better cross-Straits ties because it will be the first time an ARATS chief lands in the island since Beijing and Taipei started talks in 1993.

Chen will help realize the dream of his late predecessor Wang Daohan, whose planned visit to Taiwan was stalled in 1999 when former island leader Lee Teng-hui defined Taiwan's ties with the mainland as "special state-to-state relationship" to trigger a crisis in cross-Straits relations.

Chen's upcoming travel will be a return visit for the mainland tour of his Taiwan counterpart, chairman Chiang Pin-kung of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), in June this year.

As part of systematic negotiation between the ARATS and SEF, it is set to push cross-Straits relations to a new level and bring immediate and tangible benefits to people on both sides.

Negotiators will discuss cross-Straits shipping, air transport, postal service and food safety and are expected to ink four deals on these issues. The agreements will inject more momentum to economic and personnel exchanges across the Straits and contribute to cross-Straits peace in the long term.

The two organizations will also hold talks to enhance cooperation and find solutions to address the challenges posed by the on-going crisis in international financial markets to cross-Straits economic development. Such exchanges will be of special significance to Taiwan, which is suffering economic woes.

Media polls in the island have suggested a majority of Taiwan's people support the historic meeting between the ARATS and SEF.

But unfortunately, Taiwan's opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), driven by its strong ideology, has gone against the public will to set hurdles to cross-Straits talks. The pro-independence DPP threatened on Monday to plan a fresh wave of street actions to protest against Chen's visit.

The threat served as a warning that the DPP is set to mobilize its supporters and try every means to hinder the negotiation. Only last week, a local DPP lawmaker allegedly incited a mob to carry out an attack on ARATS deputy chief Zhang Mingqing during his tour to southern Taiwan for an academic conference.

But the DPP will never succeed in stopping the historical trend of stronger ties across the Taiwan Straits although it may create some trouble. The party will be further exposed for putting its self-interest above public welfare.

(China Daily 10/29/2008 page8)