Compatriots on both sides should enhance cooperation, seek common development and make joint efforts towards the early reunification of the motherland.

Wang made these remarks when meeting the visiting Vice-Chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT) Party of Taiwan Wu Poh-hsiung.

Wang urged the new leaders of Taiwan to "show sincerity" and admit the one-China principle.

"On this basis, we can talk about any issue," said Wang.

"On resolving the Taiwan question, we will always stick to the idea of peaceful reunification and the 'one country, two systems' principle, as well as President Jiang Zemin's eight-point proposal for pushing the peaceful reunification," said Wang.

"We will try our best to resolve the Taiwan question by peaceful means," he added.

Both Wang and Wu agreed that a crucial task now facing the mainland and the Taiwan authorities is to resume the consensus that "the two sides of the Straits both adhere to the one-China principle."

The consensus was reached in 1992 after historic talks between ARATS President Wang and Koo Chen-fu, chairman of the Taipei-based Straits Exchange Foundation. But the new leaders of Taiwan later dropped the idea.

"The KMT has always stuck to the one-China principle when dealing with cross-Straits relations," said Wu, the most senior KMT Party figure to visit the mainland in the past 51 years.

"We do not wish to allow the situation to retrogress," he said.

Wang stepped foot on the mainland as the head of a more than 40-strong delegation of Hakka Taiwan residents attending an international conference of Hakka Chinese in East China's Fujian Province.

"I keenly felt the mainland's eagerness to settle the Taiwan question with the peaceful return of Hong Kong and Macao," said Wu.

Before proceeding to Shanghai to talk with Wang and Shanghai Party Secretary Huang Ju, Wu and delegation representatives were received in Beijing by Vice-Premier Qian Qichen, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Wu visited a shrine honoring Sun Yat-sen during his stay in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province.

Described by Wu as "a graceful and wise man," Wang said "he had always been prepared for a visit to Taiwan," according to Li Qingping, spokesman of the delegation.

Sharing Wang's idea that the peaceful reunification is a complicated issue that needs a great deal of co-ordination, Wang stressed the importance of cooperation across the Straits.

"Both parties need to join hands and work for the future of China," he said. "That's simply because we are both Chinese."

(China Daily 11/28/2000)