The second Taiwanese delegation to visit China within a month met today with President Hu Jintao amid a campaign by Beijing to isolate Taiwan’s president and his supporters, who want formal independence.

Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian said today he would not shut the door on eventual unification with China if Beijing expressed goodwill.

Madame Chiang Kai-shek, famous for using her beauty, charm and fluent English to lobby Washington to help China fight the Japanese and later the Chinese Communists, has died in New York at the age of 105, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said today.