China stresses flexibility in courting Taiwan

The welcome mat was rolled out for Wu Po-hsiung upon his recent arrival in China

In this story: A potentially significant shift Status quo tested China talks to Taiwan business, opposition RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports

BEIJING -- China is heavily courting Taiwan's business leaders and opposition parties. The strategy comes as a Chinese vice premier told a senior Taiwan opposition leader on Thursday that Beijing is now more flexible on a major block on the road to better ties with the island, state media said.

MESSAGE BOARD Taiwanese statehood?

The Xinhua news agency said Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen offered Wu Poh-hsiung, vice chairman of Taiwan's Nationalist Party, a formula on the key "One China" issue that was flexible and broad enough to make it acceptable to Taiwan, a renegade province in Beijing's eyes.

Wu was formally in China for a meeting of Hakkas, a Chinese ethnic group which accounts for about a quarter of Taiwan's 23 million people, and not as an envoy for the Nationalists.

The meeting was unofficial, but nevertheless marked the highest level contact between the two parties since the Communists won a civil war in 1949 and the defeated Nationalists fled to Taiwan, where they ruled until May.

Wu's visit underscored the growing frustration by both Beijing officials and the Nationalist Party toward the policies of Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian.

"Whatever foundation of mutual trust the two sides had in the past, we want to move forward from there ... not backwards," Wu said.

A potentially significant shift

With Chen's government facing political troubles at home, Beijing is courting Taiwan opposition members who might increase pressure for a policy change.

"The current leader of Taiwan's government still won't acknowledge that he is Chinese," said Li Bingcai of China's Taiwan Affairs Office. "He doesn't accept the one-China principle. That makes it impossible to move forward with cross-straits dialogue and talks."

Xinhua quoted Qian as saying: "In saying the mainland and Taiwan are both a part of one China, we are stressing that China's sovereignty and territorial integrity are not divided and that we would not permit a division."

"At the same time, this also shows that we are pragmatic and accommodating in upholding the one-China principle," he said.

Analysts have interpreted Qian's statements as a small but potentially significant shift in a stalemate in ties since the March election of Chen.

China considers Taiwan a part of its sovereign territory and has threatened to invade if Taipei declares independence or drags its feet indefinitely on reunification talks.

Status quo tested

China was alarmed when Chen, of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, won power.

Chen has offered China soothing words, but rejected Beijing's demand that he embrace its "one-China" policy as a rigid condition which committed Taiwan to reunify on terms set by the Communist-ruled mainland.

A spokesman for Wu told reporters that Wu had stressed to Qian that Taiwan public opinion strongly supported the status quo of deepening economic ties despite separate governments.

"I think the mainland side is aware that the results of public opinion polls on Taiwan show that supporting the status quo is the mainstream sentiment," the spokesman said.

The status quo is being challenged, however, as China heavily courts Taiwan's business leaders and opposition parties.

On Thursday, Taiwan's top business tycoon urged the government to lift its decades-old bans on direct trade, transport and postal links with rival China.

"It's our hope for an end of political struggle and a focus on economic development," Wang Yung-ching, chairman of petrochemical giant Formosa Plastics group, told a news conference.

Beijing has said it still reserves the right to take military action if Taiwan fails to take steps for re-unifying with the rest of China

China talks to Taiwan business, opposition

Despite political tensions, Chinese authorities are courting the 83-year old Wang, one of Taiwan's richest men, to invest in petrochemical ventures on the mainland, which could trigger an exodus of petrochemical firms to China.

Wang signed letters of intent to invest during a visit to China in September, but no details were disclosed. His estranged son, Winston Wang, has teamed up with a son of Chinese President Jiang Zemin in a $1.6 billion chip-making plant in Shanghai.

Taiwan imposes an investment ceiling of $50 million per project on the mainland and bans businesses from investing in strategic industries such as high technology due to national security considerations.

Attracted by cheap land and labor, however, Taiwan investors have poured more than $40 billion into the mainland since rapprochement began in the late 1980s. Funds were routed through Hong Kong or a third country.

China observers say Beijing is settling in for what could be a long period of stalemate, using unofficial contacts to keep relations from getting any worse

CNN Beijing Bureau Chief Rebecca MacKinnon and Reuters contributed to this report.