The annual session of China's top legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), will vote on the draft Anti-Secession Law Monday, according to a decision made by the presidium of the session in Beijing Saturday.
  
The draft Anti-Secession Law, following some revisions based on opinions and proposals from lawmakers of the top legislature, has been approved by the NPC deputies, sources with the presidium said.
  
Deputies to the NPC have voiced unanimous support for the draft Anti-Secession Law aimed at checking Taiwan's secession from China, calling the law a manifestation of the entire Chinese people's common will to seek peaceful reunification and safeguard territorial integrity.
  
Approximately 3,000 NPC deputies of 35 delegations to the ongoing annual session of the legislature deliberated the draft law shortly after hearing a detailed explanation on Tuesday.

The NPC Law Committee amended the draft law taking into account the views of deputies and the opinions formed at the 13th session of NPC Standing Committee at the end of last year. The committee also reviewed the draft law article by article.
  
Members of China's top advisory body Thursday voiced their full endorsement for the Anti-Secession Law the national legislature is making, says a political resolution adopted at the closing meeting of the annual session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
  
"The formulation of the Anti-Secession Law manifests our persistent stand to seek peaceful reunification of the motherland with the utmost sincerity and greatest efforts, and embodies the common aspiration and firm determination of all the Chinese people to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity and never to allow 'Taiwan Independence' secessionist forces to secede Taiwan from China in any name or by any means," says the resolution.
  
Prior to the deliberation, Chinese President Hu Jintao, also chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the ruling Communist Party of China, set forth his four-point guidelines for cross-Straits relations on March 4, stating that the Chinese people will do their best to seek peaceful reunification of the motherland but will never tolerate "Taiwan independence".
  
China would use non-peaceful means and other necessary measures in the event that the "Taiwan independence" forces should act to cause the fact of Taiwan's secession from China, Wang Zhaoguo, vice-chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, cited the law as saying on Tuesday.
  
According to the draft Anti-Secession Law, China would also use non-peaceful means should major incidents entailing Taiwan's secession from China occur, or should possibilities for a peaceful reunification be completely exhausted.
  
Under those circumstances, "the state shall employ non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity," Wang told the top legislature when he made an explanation on the draft Anti-Secession Law.

(Xinhua News Agency March 12, 2005)