The government yesterday urged Taiwan's authorities to be "pragmatic" about a planned visit to the province by the mainland's official in charge of cross-Straits affairs.
   
Chen Yunlin, minister of the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office, has scheduled a visit 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), Taiwan's decision-making body on mainland policy.
   
If approved, Chen would be the highest-level mainland official to visit since 1949.
   
"We hope the Taiwan authorities deal with the visit in a pragmatic way and facilitate it," said Li Weiyi, a Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson.
   
He told a regular press conference that the Forum on Cross-Straits Economy and Culture would discuss agricultural and financial cooperation and the establishment of 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.
   
Taiwan's leader Chen Shui-bian said on November 5 that Chen Yunlin would never be allowed to visit the island because "Taiwan is not part of China."
   
Later, the DPP administration warned that Taipei would not permit the trip unless either Chen Yunlin agreed to talk to MAC Chairman Joseph Wu during it or Wu is allowed to visit the mainland.
   
The Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) sent a letter on Monday to its mainland counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), asking for talks on Chen Yunlin's proposed visit.
   
The SEF and ARATS are semi-official negotiating bodies for the two sides in the absence of official links.
   
You Ying-lung, SEF vice chairman, 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.
   
He said Beijing would not enter talks with Taipei due to "the reason known to all," referring to the DPP administration's refusal to accept the "one-China" principle.
   
Li also called for early non-government negotiations between mainland and Taiwanese airline associations on further chartered direct flights for the upcoming Spring Festival holiday.
   
(China Daily November 17, 2005)