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Delegations visit mainland as Beijing rejects chief negotiator

Jason Blatt

A key pro-unification Taiwan politician reportedly left for the mainland yesterday as Beijing rejected Taipei's offer to send its chief cross-strait negotiator to China.

The private visit by New Party heavyweight Hsu Li-nung, reportedly accompanied by nine other politicians, coincided with a Beijing trip by Taiwan tycoon Hsu Cheng-fa, the head of Taiwan's Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Mr Hsu Li-nung, a retired general who formerly commanded the Defence Ministry's Political Warfare Department, was said to be arranging a meeting with President Jiang Zemin before returning home on November 26, reports in Taiwan media said.

New Party politician Lee Ching-hua, the son of former premier Lee Huan, was said to have been part of the delegation, ostensibly on the mainland to 'visit relatives'.

Reports in Taiwan yesterday said Mr Hsu Cheng-fa and a delegation of Taiwanese businessmen were unlikely to be able to visit President Jiang during their trip.

But Beijing's former Taiwan policy chief, Wang Zhaoguo, met them and said he hoped Taiwanese enterprises would 'ignore' President Lee Teng-hui's call to avoid large-scale mainland investments.

The private visits were taking place on the day Beijing formally turned down Taipei's offer to send its chief cross-strait negotiator, Straits Exchange Foundation chairman Koo Chen-fu, to visit the mainland.

The Beijing-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, which negotiates with Taipei in the absence of formal cross-strait ties, told its Taiwan counterpart such a visit would be possible, but only at an 'appropriate time'.

Taiwan last week had offered to send Mr Koo to the mainland after the association invited his deputy, Chiao Jen-ho, to address an economic seminar in Xiamen next month.

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