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TAIPEI : China's incoming top negotiator with Taiwan is expected to visit the island in June to resume negotiations between the traditional rivals, a report said Saturday.
Chen Yunlin is likely to ink a deal with his Taiwanese counterpart Chiang Pin-kun on starting weekend direct flights and bringing in more Chinese tourists to the island, the Commercial Times said, quoting unnamed sources.
Chiang has been appointed by president-elect Ma Ying-jeou to head the Straits Exchange Foundation, which is in charge of civilian exchanges with the mainland in the absence of official contacts between Beijing and Taipei.
The report said both sides already have "tacit understanding" to realise the two issues by July 4 and have resolved most of the technicalities.
It said Chen, currently head of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, was expected to take over the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait in late May.
Meanwhile, former Kuomintang (KMT) chairman Lien Chan is reportedly planning to visit Beijing next week and meet Chinese President Hu Jintao, three years after his historic trip to the mainland in 2005.
Lien became the first KMT leader to visit the mainland in 56 years when he met Hu to formally end hostilities with the communists. They issued a statement agreeing to push for cross-strait talks and seek closer ties in trade, tourism and other areas.
They will unveil a sculpture symbolic of cross-strait peace created by the late Taiwanese artist Yuyu Yang in Beijing's Olympic park, according to the United Daily News.
Ma, of the Beijing-friendly KMT, trounced Frank Hsieh of the Democratic Progressive Party in last month's presidential vote, although he does not formally take office until May 20.
He has vowed to improve relations with China, increase trade, tourism and transport links, and work on a peace treaty to thaw relations.
Taiwan and China split in 1949 after a civil war and Beijing still claims the island as part of its territory awaiting reunification.
- AFP/ir
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