The Kuomintang (KMT) Honorary Chairman Lien Chan arrived in Beijing Thursday afternoon to attend the cross-Strait economic and trade forum, which is to open here on Friday.
Hu Jintao, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), will meet with Lien Chan during the forum. Lien Chan will on Friday deliver a speech at the forum.
Lien will also pay respects to the tomb of Dr. Sun Yat-sen at Fragrant Hill in the western suburb of Beijing before doing the same to his own ancestors in Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province.
Lien will also visit several other provinces and cities before returning to Taiwan on April 25.
This is Lien's third visit to the mainland in the past year.
As Kuomintang Chairman, Lien first visited the mainland at the invitation of Hu from April 26 to May 3, last year. During that tour, he visited Nanjing, Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai and paid his respects to the mausoleum of KMT founding father Sun Yat-sen in Nanjing. He was the first KMT Chairman to visit Sun Yat-sen's mausoleum since the mainland and Taiwan split 56 years ago.
On April 29, Hu Jintao held landmark talks with Lien in Beijing. The first talks between a CPC leader and a KMT leader in 60 years. They jointly issued the document titled "common aspirations and prospects for cross-Strait peace and development".
From Oct. 14 to 28, last year, as Kuomintang Honorary Chairman, Lien Chan came as an envoy of his mother and visited her friends and family in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province. During that visit, he toured the provinces of Shandong, Hunan and Sichuan and Shanghai Municipality.
During last fall's tour, Lien visited the Panda Research Center in Wolong, Sichuan Province, saying that he would make every effort to ensure that the mainland's gift of a pair of giant pandas would find a home in Taiwan.
Jia Qinglin, Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) met with Lien Chan on April 18 2005 in Qingdao City, Shandong Province. |
