Soong meets Chinese president

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.

James Soong’s People’s First Party favours eventually uniting Taiwan and the mainland.

Hu told Soong that China was pleased with his party’s opposition to Taiwan’s formal independence and adherence to the notion that Taiwan and the mainland remain a single Chinese nation despite their political division.

“We must show the world that the Chinese people on either side of the Taiwan Strait have the ability and the wisdom to solve the contradictions and disagreements before us,” Hu said.

Echoing Hu’s comments, Soong said Taiwan’s independence would lead to war and disaster.

“All the countries in the world are looking on as to whether we can guide the wisdom of the Chinese people on either side of the Taiwan Strait and use our ability to allow Chinese to eliminate the misunderstandings and problems of the past between us,” Soong said.

“I am full of expectations and hope,” he added.

Soong’s visit comes two weeks after the chairman of Taiwan’s main opposition Nationalist Party, Lien Chan, met with Hu in the highest level contact between the sides since they split amid civil war in 1949.

China and Taiwan have no official relations and China has threatened to attack Taiwan if it indefinitely refuses to accept unification under Beijing’s rule. High-level contacts are rare.