Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung arrived in Beijing Monday to start an eight-day visit to the mainland that he called a chance to review cross-Straits interactions in the past year and exchange ideas "frankly and in a friendly way."

Wang Yi (R, Front), director of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, shakes hands with Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung at the Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing on May 25, 2009. A KMT delegation headed by Wu arrived in Beijing on Monday for an visit on the mainland.

Wu made the trip at the invitation of Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee General Secretary Hu Jintao. The two will meet Tuesday to exchange ideas on the cross-Straits relationship.

Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, met with Wu and his delegation Monday.

Jia stressed that interaction and inter-party dialogue would play an irreplaceable role in keeping the development of cross-Straits relations on a peaceful track and building trust.

The KMT and CPC had shouldered greater responsibility in promoting the cross-Straits relationship, said Jia, who is also a member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau.

He said Wu's meeting with Hu would promote political mutual trust.

Both sides should find opportunities amid the global downturn to promote the normalization of the cross-Straits economic relationship through more institutionalized economic cooperation, Jia told Wu.

Wu said that the great progress of cross-Straits relations in the past year had proved that the common prospects for peaceful cross-Straits development, agreed by leaders of the two parties in 2005, fully met the needs of people on both sides.

The two parties had achieved unprecedented interaction and should unswervingly continue their exchanges in a proper direction, Wu said.

Both the people in the mainland and Taiwan were Chinese and responsible for the revitalization of the nation and its culture, he added.

"Through cooperation in tackling problems, the two sides should explore a way to create a future of mutual benefit and prosperity," said Wang Yi, director of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, earlier during a welcoming ceremony at the airport. "Leaders will talk about this issue at the coming meeting."

Wu will visit Beijing, then southwestern Chongqing Municipality, Hangzhou in eastern Zhejiang Province and Nanjing in eastern Jiangsu Province, said KMT spokesman Lee Chien-jung earlier in Taipei.

Lee said the leaders of the KMT and CPC would review the events of the past year and reach an understanding on how to promote relations.

Wu would attend activities to commemorate Dr. Sun Yat-sen, a founder of the KMT, or Nationalist Party of China, in Nanjing on June 1, Lee added. This year is the 80th anniversary of Sun being buried in Nanjing.

Wang Jianmin, a Taiwan affairs researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said: "It is a significant breakthrough in form for Hu to invite, in public, Wu to visit Beijing.

"Exchanges between the two parties have very special effects on cross-Straits relations," he added.